


New

by europa_report



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adventures with lance and keith, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drinking, Falling In Love, Fix-It, Future Fic, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Violence, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Keith (Voltron), Oblivious Lance (Voltron), Pre-Relationship, Road Trips, Romance, Slow Burn, post-season 8, yell about your feelings its healthy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2019-09-20 08:26:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 43,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17019201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/europa_report/pseuds/europa_report
Summary: "Why?""Why leave home and drive across the country? Well, Keith, isyourlife going the way you thought it would?"After six years of silence, Lance packing up and leaving his relatively quiet life sparks enough panic amongst his family for them to contact Keith to... track him down? Keith isn't too sure, only that getting roped into this miserable road trip wasn't part of his plan.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in half an hour and I promise the next chapter will be better and longer but thanks so much for reading ;)
> 
> OH BY WAY ALLURA NOT DEAD

“ _So now Lance is like, kinda AWOL, and if you know where to find him, then we’d all appreciate it_.”

The phone call had not been what Keith was expecting at eleven pm on a Tuesday, but then again, very little of the past two weeks had gone according to plan. He was back on Earth for the first time in… what? A year? It had been too long, yet still unintentional, at least up until the last possible moment. Most everyone else was off planet; Pidge and Coran on Altea, Krolia still on their aid-mission (the one Keith had abandoned prematurely), and Hunk on a cookery tour that ensured he was well out of range of Earth. That left two of the original paladins to deal with the call; Shiro, who was busy with his family and god knows what else, and Keith.

“Keith? You still there?”

Keith hadn’t really spoken to Rachel McClain, ever. He might’ve waved or mumbled a quick hello during the short intervals where Lance’s family seemed caught up with them all, but it was never more than that. They weren’t familiar in any way, and in the six years since their final fight, since the day they lost Allura, Lance’s family had grown into something entirely uncharted, and unfamiliar.

“Yeah,” Keith said. “I’m here. When’s the last time you saw him?”

He wasn’t Rachel’s first choice to call upon, he knew that. She’d told him from the get go she’d tried to contact Hunk, realised he was off planet and rung Pidge, only to learn she was too. Then she’d rung Shiro, hit his voice mail, and in her impatience, rung Keith.

“He was home _yesterday_ ,” Rachel went on. “And today, truck gone, along with a case of his belongings and I just- I… I-I don’t know, Keith. Work hasn't seen him either and I’m worried about him.”

“I understand.”

Keith paused, trying to find something more, something better to say to the anxious sister of the man-

Keith jumped at the sound of the train shaking the tracks as it trundled past the hotel he was camped in. _Fuck it_ , he should have asked for a quieter room. He tugged the curtains closed irritably, again debating what the hell he was doing back here. Krolia told him he should go but… it felt wrong. Off. Not like being away from Earth had felt right, but there was still something here, something itching under his skin.

“I know it’s out of the blue, and I’m really sorry, I just- it’s tricky for any of us to go after him right now, and I don’t think he wants to speak-“

“Hey, don’t… don’t worry. Don’t apologise, please. It’s no problem I can… I’ll find him, okay? Do you know if he has a phone on him?”

“Well he’s been ignoring all my calls,” Rachel muttered. “But probably.”

“Okay. That’s a start.”

Keith inched the curtain back a little, squinting at the hazy streetlamps and lone people wondering about the dark city.

“Is it enough?”

“Yeah. I… yeah don’t worry. I can handle it.”

He could find Lance, no problem. The last time he’d seen Lance was… two years ago. Briefly. But he’d seen him. Shot him a smile and asked how he was, pretended to ignore how stiff their conversation was, and left with a deep, hollow feeling in his chest.

He could find Lance.

“You should, uh, get some sleep. I’ll let you know if I find him.”

“Really? I can try and call him again…”

“You don’t really think that’s gonna work, right?”

Rachel sighed, and Keith could picture her nursing a headache or some other symptom of anxiety.

“Seriously, don’t worry. He’s Lance, he… does these things.”

Lance never did those things. Not during their time as paladins at least. He never ran off, never disappeared, never abandoned the others without care or explanation like Keith had. It just wasn’t Lance.

“Yeah,” Rachel said, and she sounded equally unsure. “That’s Lance.”

“Get some rest. I’ll text when I find him.”

“Okay. Thanks, Keith.”

“No need to thank me. He’s my friend.”

Rachel sighed, and she sounded exhausted. “Yeah. Night, Keith.”

“Night-“

The call cut off before he finished his word, and he didn’t know if it was due to her exhaustion, or simply that she didn’t trust him enough, and was off to call someone else to locate her brother. It was odd, Lance up and leaving. From what Keith had heard, he’d been particularity quiet, before simply packing up his truck before dawn, and leaving without so much as a whisper. It left Keith feeling uncomfortable, forced him to confront how far they’d drifted, how he didn’t really know Lance at all anymore.

Keith sighed, tugging at the ratty curtains again out’ve anxiety. He’d been back on Earth for a week, hadn’t budged much from this hotel room, though he really ought to. He didn’t know what he was doing, and it occurred briefly that maybe Lance didn’t know either. There was a backpack splayed open on his bed, a dull hum coming from the TV to drown out the small and slight sounds he’d been trained to listen for but weren’t a danger to him anymore, and a laptop on the small desk provided by the hotel. Keith reopened his phone, and dialled in a new number.

“Pidge? Yeah, sorry to wake you. I really need a favour right now.”

-

Keith hadn’t been much in this city before. He’d only agreed to be dropped here because it was the easiest destination for the Garrison transport vessel that had picked him up to drop him at. It was large, still recovering from the battle of years before, a little grimy and a little too noisy for his liking. Despite it being after midnight on a Tuesday, and despite the bitter cold, the main street was loud and alive with all the wrong sorts of people. Keith was good enough at navigating through those sorts, figured he could pull off a fierce enough look that no one would bother him, figured the scar on his face might scare them off.

The street was full of drunken men, the rowdy sorts, the quiet sorts, neither of whom Keith liked to be around. Sometimes he missed Earth, sometimes… Keith glared as someone brushed roughly past him, tugging his jacket tighter and heading for the flashing sign above the pub Pidge had tracked Lance’s phone to. He was bloody lucky Keith was in the area, bloody lucky he hadn’t made him drive halfway across the country to find him.

Now that he was considering it, Keith didn’t really know what he was going to say. _Hi Lance, long time no see. Hi Lance, your sister’s worried so I’m here to take you home. Hi Lance, I still-_ Someone walked rudely into Keith, laughing it off in their drunken state as he huffed and glared after them. He had no idea what he’d say to Lance, if he was even there. He was winging it, trying to justify it was for the sake of someone who wasn’t him, someone allowed to care about Lance.

The pub was noisy when Keith shoved his way through the doors, flinching back at the smell of smoke and bright lights, the haze of it all and the yellow gleam of alcohol lining the glass shelves of the bar. This wasn’t where he belonged and it wasn’t where he wanted to be. It was the exact opposite of where he should be, according to his therapist, mother, friends, and the general opinion of anyone who had ever met Keith. It was a bear trap of triggers, of sounds and sights that could send Keith tumbling over the edge. It was loud, drunken men, and tinny music, hazy air and dimmed lights, it was people pushing and shoving and cheering at the sports on the television and laughing and shouting and gambling and then, right in the midst of it all, it was him.

It was brown hair, and a set of shoulders Keith knew the shape of, somehow. And he hadn’t thought he’d recognise Lance by his _shoulders_ , but maybe it was all the times he’d watched his back retreat into battle, or the times he’d checked his armour was on firmly, coming to rest a firm hand on his back, peeling back his flight suit to reveal horrific burns, staring at Lance’s back as the blue paladin stared out the window into the lonely, lonely void, wondering if he felt as empty and alone as the space around them. It was due to time, and repetition, and injury, but to Keith was still inexplicable, but he knew Lance by his shoulders.

He was over by the pool table, and Keith hadn’t even seen his face but he knew that he’d look different. He looked a little taller, a little broader, hair perhaps a little longer, and half of him wished Lance would never turn around. He could walk back out this pub, back up the street, call Rachel and tell her Lance was safe, but Keith was not going to speak to him. He might’ve run away, if he’d been able to look away. But he couldn’t, because instead he was watching Lance twirl the cue between his fingers, watching him drink from the bottle in his hand before setting it down to take the shot. And he made the shot, then missed the next, but the miss was on purpose so he could turn to the woman beside him and whisper and smirk and turn and-

And Keith realised his mistake just a few steps too late, but which stage he couldn’t remember ever getting so close, close enough to remember the shade of Lance’s eyes and to confront the pale blue specks on his cheeks and the haunting, old familiar smirk that was reflected in eyes dancing with mirth. Lance was still Lance, though he was older and toughened and different somehow. And he was still infuriating and funny and _breathtaking_ in a look, and Keith didn’t know what to make of it.

“Hiya Keith,” he said. “What’re you doing here?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, thanks so much to everyone reading so far!
> 
> Please note I made some minor changes to chapter one, incase you read this before the 19th of December and want to reread it for them...
> 
> chapters are still pretty short but will probably get longer as the story progresses, thank you for the lovely comments last time and I hope you enjoy it!

Hearing Lance speak for the first time in two years was… something. It was neither as hard nor easy as Keith was anticipating. It happened so quickly, a greeting and a look, directed at him, that made Keith feel as if his feet had been swept out from under him. It felt like Lance was looking down on him, the small step on the pub floor between them amplifying until it was a pedestal and there was Lance, up on top of it all, staring at him with an almost cocky expression like he knew and could see and hear every one of Keith’s thoughts. And that really wouldn’t do.

“Actually,” said Keith. “I’m just here to drag your ass home.”

And oh, great. _Great_. That was what he was going to say? Two years and that was the _first thing_ out’ve his mouth? He hadn’t said it without consequence either, because now Lance’s expression was souring, shutting off a little, his eyes shifting properly over Keith and then around the pub as if he expected an ambush, expected the others to be there too. The cocky grin returned but it was tighter, a false decoy and Keith swore he could see those cursed little Altean markings glowing but it could have been the light or the alcohol or the glint of sweat on his cheeks from this muggy room.

“Yeah, whatever,” he muttered, and turned away.

Then it was back to staring at Lance’s shoulders and wishing the past thirty seconds hadn’t happened. Because now Lance was…. Ignoring him? Two years, and Keith blew it in an instant, and he had no idea why Lance had left his family without a word and come here, no idea about his life at all, and just what the _hell?_

Keith found himself stepping forward, up the short step and into the little section of pub comprised of two pool tables and some pinball machines, too many men crammed around for him to be comfortable. He didn’t recognise the woman Lance was with, would pin them as no more than acquaintances given the way they were acting towards each other, had probably just begun to flirt before he interrupted. Keith didn’t feel so confident anymore, supposed he hadn’t to begin with, but now he was down right terrified. Lance wasn’t drunk like he’d first assumed, given the drink in hand and the general vibe of this place. He wasn’t drunk, because his eyes were clear and his posture rigid as he pointedly ignored Keith and leaned over the table to take a smooth shot at the ball. He missed, and this time it wasn’t intentional, because Keith caught the slight hiss of irritation before Lance was straightening and turning to him.

“It really is you.”

Lance sounded… _dry?_ Disappointed, unimpressed, a slight frown decorating his brow telling Keith that not only was he unexpected, but unwelcome.

“Yeah, I… shouldn’t have started by saying that-“

“Really?” Lance said, and there was a tiny sneer of _something_. “What clued you in?”

Lance’s opponent was clearly less sober, and taking far to long to make the shot. It was irritating him, Keith could see.

“I’m sorry. I was kind of surprised to see you.”

That earned him a quirked brow.

“Keith Kogane, learning to apologise?”

It was said with less of a sneer now, more curiosity, more of a tease. More Lance.

“I knew how to apologise,” he protested weakly, desperate for more of this Lance.

Lance smiled, just briefly, shaking his head.

“Look, Lance… can we talk?”

Lance gestured widely, indicating for Keith to go ahead as his opponent took the shot and missed miserably.

“Can we talk outside?”

“Why? I like it in here.”

“I-“

Keith huffed as Lance turned around again, setting the cue against his fingers to aim.

“Lance I really think we should talk.”

“We are talking.”

Keith resisted the urge to glower, uncomfortable whilst surrounded by these people, especially now that Lance’s companion, whoever she was, was staring at him smugly from whee she was perched on a nearby barstool. Did they even know each other? Couldn’t she just… go away? And take the rest of this pub with her? Keith crossed his arms over his chest as she smirked, resisting the urge to snatch the cue right out’ve Lance’s hand so he’d be forced to look at him again.

“Rachel called me-“

“ _Rachel_ called you? Huh, thought the mullet would be enough to put her off-“

“That’s not funny-“

“It’s hilarious, Keith. Never gets old.”

Lance took the shot, sunk a ball. He hummed, pleased, then took aim at another.

“I think she just wants to know you’re safe.”

“Well, file your report. Cause here I am.”

He sunk another ball, and Keith had to stop himself planting a hand on the table to stop this _stupid_ game so they could just talk. Two years of silence, this was not how he’d expected their first interaction to go.

“Why’d you… leave though?”

“Jeez, am I under house arrest? A guy can’t leave the house?”

Lance took the shot, missed-

“You took everything with you-“

It took about half a second for Lance to have that cue under his chin, shutting Keith up with a light pressure against his throat and it was so _infuriatingly childish_ yet intimidating all the same.

“Your hair’s longer.”

Lance was looking at him properly now, and Keith hated that the cue felt more like a knife tilting his chin than a stupid bit of wood.

“Still shorter.”

Keith slapped the cue away, glaring at him.

“You done?”

“Depends.”

“On _what?_ ”

“Why are you here?”

“Take a fucking guess, Lance.”

“There are really… so many guesses.”

Resisting rolling his eyes, Keith crossed his arms again, casting a dirty look at their company.

“Can we please talk outside?”

With a dramatized sigh, Lance surrendered. He placed the cue down with little flare, not bothering to offer his opponent an explanation as he turned to follow Keith. Keith, who now, walking from the pub, could _feel_ those eyes burning into the back of his neck. He tried not to stumble on his way out of the door, tried to maintain the façade of someone who knew what he was doing. Who cared that he hadn’t seen Lance for two years? Who cared about any of this, they were so _far past it_. Because it was longer than two years really. Three since they’d had a proper conversation, four since the last time they’d laughed together, five since it felt like they were actually friends. And six years ago…

Six years ago, Keith would’ve said things were good, except they _weren’t_. Six years ago Allura was swallowed up into another fucking dimension, which would hurt a hell of a lot less if she didn’t feel so _gone_. She wasn’t even far away, like Coran and the rest of the Alteans, there weren’t light years they could cross to find her, or wormholes they could travel or any of that. There was just a divide, solid and unbreakable and she was somewhere, in a reality with other Alteans and other paladins and Keith hoped she was happy but he didn’t _know_ , what he knew was that they missed her and six years wasn’t all that long and they weren’t-

“You still think so _loudly_.”

They were out the pub now, a few metres down the street and under the dim light of convenience store sign. It was there, in the nook by the doorway, without people bumping into them or eavesdropping on every word, that Keith thought they might actually be able to hold a conversation. Then again, with no one else listening, Keith didn’t have much of an excuse to stay quiet.

“So, how are you?”

Lance stared at him, and maybe he wasn’t hundred percent sober, out here where the lighting was crisp and the air cooler, smelling faintly of cigarettes and cheap coffee from inside the convenience store. There were faded bits of gum stuck to the dirty concrete, and beside them a larger, darker scorch mark, evidence of a battle than took place here over six years ago.

“I’m fine,” said Lance. “How are you?”

It felt so awkward, stiff and unnatural. What happened to their easy conversations, the days aboard the castle where sometimes it felt like Lance was the only person in the universe he wanted to talk to? What happened to being comfortable in each others presence, laughing or scowling at jokes, depending on the mood, and just being content to stand there side by side and back each other up?

“Me too,” said Keith. “I… It’s good to see you.”

A pause; the stark store lighting was too revealing, and Keith stepped a little closer to the shadows.

“What are you doing here?”

Keith sighed, bracing himself for the worst.

“Rachel rung me, she just wanted help finding you.”

“I’m not a child-“

“I know you’re not a child. If I just disappeared though, didn’t tell my family anything, wouldn’t you want to know where I’d gone?”

“Not really,” said Lance, and suddenly the air in Keith’s lungs felt a whole lot thinner, stale, like he needed to draw breath but couldn’t because the air was already there it just wasn’t _right_.

“I haven’t seen you in two years, dude,” Lance said. “Why are you… I didn’t even know you were on Earth.”

“I-I wasn’t. Well, I got back two weeks ago.”

“ _Two weeks_? What the hell, Keith, why are you here?”’

“I promised Rachel I’d find you and I did, okay? That’s all it is, Lance. I’ll go right now if you want me to, but I think you should… I think you should call her, or something. I don’t know, why did you run off?”

“How’d you know I ran off?”

“You took the truck-“

“Maybe I wanted to live a little closer to work, you know? It’s kinda a long commute out from home, I’m twenty six man, why am I still living there-“

“I know you left.”

Lance paused, frowning. “What?”

“The instructor job? I know you left. They said you cleared out your office, Lance I… can you tell me what’s going on? Please?”

Lance was silence for a very long time, until Keith thought he might say nothing at all. His eyes were older than the last time he’d seen him, hair scruffier yet still well kept, five o’clock shadow creeping over his chin. And there on his cheeks, two blue marks, paler now, as if they’d faded, but visible nonetheless. Allura’s parting gift to him, though Keith didn’t know how much of a gift it really was, how Lance felt every day when he woke and saw those on him.

“I’m leaving the state. Going on a road trip. And the way I see it, that’s nobody’s business but my own.”

Keith blinked. Once, twice.

"Why?"

"Why leave home and drive across the country? Well, Keith, is _your_ life going how you thought it would?"

His lips parted, but Keith still wasn’t sure what he wanted to say.

“You… you’re moving?”

“Don’t know. I’m leaving though, that’s for sure.”

“Why-“

“Cause I want to, Keith. Not as if you ever explained yourself when _you_ wanted to go somewhere.”

“But this is… you’re just leaving?”

“Yeah?”

“Where… where are you going?”

“Don’t know. Think I’m just gonna head straight as I can in the opposite direction. Heh, if I make it across the country, I could see Veronica for Christmas.”

Keith frowned, trying to gain a handle on this.

“What the hell, Lance.”

“What?”

“Why… why didn’t you tell your family?”

“Because I didn’t want to have this conversation,” Lance said, a little snappish. “Jesus, I just need to go, okay Keith? I thought you’d understand, being off with the Blades.”

“I…”

Keith was stuck. Lance was leaving, going… anywhere? Away from home, away from his job as an instructor, away from the people and places that were familiar, and Keith wouldn’t have been worried, was worried, except he _understood._

“Can I come with?”

“Can… _what?_ ”

Lance tore his attention away from the window sticker he’d been fiddling with to stare at Keith.

“You have space in the car? Can I come?”

“Can you… why the hell would you want to do that?”

“I…”

Why _did_ he want to go? A road trip with _Lance?_ Trapped in a car with Lance with little to no idea where they were headed, crossing the country with a man he hadn’t known as a friend for almost five years, all because…

“I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know what I want to do, on Earth. So can I come with you? It’ll half fuel costs-“

“No,” said Lance. “What the- no, you can’t come. The hell, Keith?”

“Please.”

“ _Please?_ ”

“Yeah, what’s the issue?”

Lance looked to be having a stroke.

“I just don’t see why the hell you’d want to come.”

“Do you need to? I’ll stop asking if you stop asking.”

“Asking what?”

“Why you’re running away.”

“I’m not-“ Lance stopped, biting his tongue. “I don’t even know how long I’ll be gone for.”

“Doesn’t matter. Not like I have anything better to do. Besides, if you want me gone I’ll… go. I just want- I don’t know what, alright? Maybe just to get out of here as well.”

Lance kept staring at him, and staring and staring until Keith thought he couldn’t take it. Why did Lance still have to look like that, after all these years, familiar and beautiful in ways Keith couldn’t describe, didn’t want to, for fear he’d become even more unforgettable.

“There’s a motel five blocks over. Roadside something or other, I’ll text you the address. Five am, Keith, or I’m leaving without you.”

The answer shocked Keith, the opposite of what he’d expected to hear. Lance looked to be regretting it already, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket and looking anywhere but Keith.

“I… I’ll be there.”

“Yeah, well I’ll happily leave without you.”

“I promise.”

“Please don’t,” Lance whined.

“Can I let Rachel know-“

“ _I’m_ texting Rachel,” Lance announced. “Stop interfering, alright? That’s rule one if you want to drive with me.”

“Uh, sure.”

A heavy sigh, then-

“I’m cold. I’ll see you in the morning. Or not. I don’t know, do whatever Keith.”

“Okay. I’ll see you then. Five, right?”

“Five,” Lance called back, already walking away into the throng of drunken noise.

A text pinged on Keith’s phone, showing the address to the motel. He didn’t know how Lance had come up with his number, but wasn’t gong to question it. Besides, the man was already out of sight. He sighed, tucking his phone back into his pocket and beginning the walk back to his hotel. There was no way he’d sleep tonight, not knowing there was such a fine amount of time before he’d be meeting Lance again, but that was alright.

There was no one at the reception desk at this hour, but Keith let himself into his room and began preparing what small amount of possessions he had. There were his clothes, basic toiletries, a book in which he kept a photograph of Kosmo and his mother. He missed them both already, but they had things to do in places Keith didn’t think he could bear being anymore. His knife, a sketchbook, gloves, the dumb little friendship bracelet Pidge had given him mostly as a joke. He only ever owned what he could carry with him, and now, nothing had changed.

Although sleep wasn’t coming, Keith lay down anyway, staring up at the pale ceiling as the lights from outside his window illuminated it and the smudges of dirt and god knows what else. This room was cramped and tacky, and Keith couldn’t wait to be free of it, yet he appreciated the lack of attachment. No homely picture to try and lull you into a false sense of security, barely a scratch of colour save the faded floral curtains and the green tiles lining the bathroom sink. Life in a car with Lance was going to be a hundred times better than this, it had to be. They didn’t even have to talk, nothing had to be awkward or go wrong, they just got to leave.

Still afraid of missing his ride, Keith set an alarm, plugged a set of earphones in, and pushed the bed aside to workout. It was barely three hours until he needed to be at Lance’s motel, not long at all, but it would still drag, and the less thinking he could do the better. It was going to be fine, this plan wasn’t stupid at all. Just him and Lance, driving across the country; Keith couldn’t be more worried if he tried. He cranked the music up, drowning the thoughts in his head, and hoping and praying Lance decided to leave half an hour earlier and they forget this whole entire thing.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I promised longer chapters but... I think short chapters are the only way I'll maintain motivation and also have the time for <3
> 
> Thanks for the lovely comments guys! I really appreciate them, and hope you enjoy this chapter

Lance dropped his key in the box at reception and hauled himself outside at exactly 5:06 in the morning. He had a single backpack (the rest of his belongings were already in the car), and a slight headache telling him he should’ve drunk a little more water last night. Last night… Lance shook his head, cursing himself for the hundredth time over what had happened. Why he’d told Keith he could come with, he had no idea, only that there was no backing out now. He’d barely slept, had only forced himself because he knew he’d be driving as far and fast away from this city as he could today. And he’d be doing all of it with Keith right there in the passenger seat. _Fuck_. What had he been thinking? This was meant to be a solo thing, this was meant to be him, and his car, and whatever he couldn’t live without, getting the hell away from this city and this job and this _life_ -

Keith was there. He’d picked the car he’d assumed was Lance’s, and he was right, the bastard. He’d probably been there for half an hour already, given how he _loved_ to be first. Lance stifled a sigh, pausing at the exit of the motel and shifting the pack on his shoulders. Keith had changed, a lot, yet he was still so recognisably Keith it kinda hurt. They were still a similar height, though maybe Keith was cheating by wearing boots that seemed to give him an extra inch. His hair was longer, long enough to be tied back into a pony, and Lance didn’t really know what to make of that. He couldn’t exactly call it a mullet anymore. Keith was less baby-faced now, they both were, but his features were still soft around that brutal scar crossing his cheek. He was still… pretty, somehow. Lance scolded himself for thinking that, scowling as he trudged over to his car and Keith.

The man looked up at he approached, tugging at the red scarf he had tucked into a heavy black jacket- his fashion sense really hadn’t changed, had it? He looked sufficiently warm despite the chill in the air, a single, smaller backpack resting by his feet.

“This your car?” He called.

Lance nodded, biting his cheek in the hopes his tongue wouldn’t feel so numb anymore. He came to a stop, face to face, ignoring how eager Keith looked, like Lance was his greatest chance at escape.

“That all you have?” Lance asked, gesturing to the small pack.

“Yeah.”

“You seriously wanna do this?”

“Yeah. Do you?”

“It’s my plan, isn’t it?”

Keith shrugged. “You’re allowed to change your mind.”

Lance snorted. “No thanks. I assume you’re ready to go.”

Keith nodded.

“Don’t you want to know where we’re going?”

“I don’t really care.”

Lance sighed; this was really happening, wasn’t it?

“Let’s get going then.”

“I’m calling shotgun.”

Lance took a long time staring at Keith, trying to remain impassive to that teasing look until he finally cracked.

“I can’t believe you learnt how to make jokes.”

Keith snorted, walking around to the passenger seat as Lance dumped his pack in the backseat and ensured he hadn’t forgotten any of their supplies. It was all there- his tent, a supply box, a duffle bag full of books, a cooler box and a stash of cooking supplies. They were practical things mostly, things to keep him going wherever he ended up. And right now Lance didn’t know if that would be at Veronica’s for Christmas, a small country town where not a single soul could find him, or somewhere else entirely, somewhere unexpected. H wondered if Keith would still be with him.

“How long have you been planning this?” Keith asked, right as Lance took his seat behind the wheel.

“Three days.”

“That’s it?”

Lance glanced at him as he started up the engine, noting Keith already had his seatbelt done up; he wasn’t one for wasting time, was he?

“I knew I wanted to leave for longer than that.”

If Keith wanted to say something to that, he was interrupted by the roar of the engine, which quietened down once the car was up and running, but by that stage Lance was pulling out of the parking lot. He’d inherited this truck from his brother, and while he could’ve been driving one of those fancy Garrison vehicles they all had access too, this was a part of his family and it was practical and perhaps most importantly, unrecognisable. A Garrison speeder pulling into roadside motels in the middle of goddam nowhere might raise questions, but this truck? No one would bat an eye.

The city was still asleep around them, and Lance caught Keith looking out the window in silence as they passed through the deserted streets. It was too early and too cold for even the most dedicated partygoers, because now all was clear and quiet. Litter and empty bottles lined the streets, the wind tossing dirty wrappers and paper cups into gutters. Lance hated this city, was glad he’d spent his last night here in the midst of all that noise and chaos and confusion, just to remind him how badly he wanted to run.

The car windows were fogging a little as the cold pressed in from outside, murky dawn just teasing the sky with little hints of purple and dark blue. Buildings rose around them, some new, some old, some deserted with their walls still crumbling from the war of many years before. Keith took it all in, bright eyes staring out the window and hands tucked inside his jacket as he waited for the car to warm up. It was so surreal, seeing him there in the passenger seat, like some confusing dream that was neither friendly nor frightening, just odd and a little out of place, something Lance had conjured up from an injured past. How long had it been since Keith had spent any meaningful time on Earth? Did he miss it, or did it mean very little to him anymore? Lance wondered if he was happier with the Blade, happy doing their aid work, helping people in places that weren’t Earth. It sounded like good work he was doing, at least from the last update he received, but he wondered if Keith was happy. Could he be, if he’d come back? And then, why had he come back?

“How long are you gonna be back for?”

They’d been driving for half an hour by the time Lance spoke. They’d hit the freeway, picking the direction that took them furthest from this city, from this side of the country, and just begun to drive.

“I’m not sure yet,” Keith answered.

His eyes were still fixed out the window, watching for breaks in the trees lining the road that revealed industrial zones and suburban housing.

“Haven’t thought about it.”

“So… what, you just came back, no plan?”

“Yup.”

“Why?”

Keith shrugged, glancing over to meet his eye. Lance had to force his eyes back on the road; Keith’s were kinda distracting.

“Come on man, there’s gotta be a reason.”

“I thought we agreed not to ask.”

“No, we agreed not to ask about _me_.”

Keith snorted. 

“Okay, well catch me up on the other stuff then. What’s been happening with you?”

“Uh, a lot,” Keith offered. “Is this since the last time I saw you or…”

Now it was Lance’s turn to shrug. “Since whenever. Just tell me what’s been going on in the life of Keith. I assume you’ve been too busy for a haircut.”

“Still with the hair,” Keith said, cracking a smile. “But I’ve been good, mostly.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We’ve been doing aid work, you know, with my mom and the Blade. That’s been going well, I’ve been getting to see some amazing places, others… less amazing.”

Lance frowned, glancing over.

“There’s been a lot of damage,” Keith said with a sigh. “You’d know. It’s just… like did you ever imagine, when we first started doing this, how it would end? Cause I kinda- I thought it would all go down in one epic battle that we’d obviously win, and that would be it. Voltron saves the day, the people cheer, everyone goes home. But now there’s all this… there’s all this damage, still. There’s all these cities, and whole planets that are just, gone. All these families that got split up, and hungry people, and kids, Lance… there’s all these kids without their parents and- I don’t know. I think some of it started hitting a little too close to home.”

Keith went quiet then, staring at his hands and refusing to meet Lance’s eye when he tried for contact.

“Shit man, that… I’m sorry, that sucks.”

A shrug, then-

“It’s not all bad. It’s mostly good, actually. Cause we get to come in and fix those places, y’know? And it’s great seeing them up and running again, when we get to reunite people. I like it. I’ve been… it’s good too, I get to spend time with Krolia. I… I was actually engaged for a little while-“

“ _What?_ ”

Keith chuckled at Lance’s outburst, unfurling from the dismal ball he’d been in to actually meet the pair of wide eyes waiting for him.

“Yeah, he was also a Blade member-“

“Woah woah woah, wait, hold it, hold the phone, wait a minute, hold up, hang on, _you_ were engaged? Like… like _marriage_ engaged?”

The bright smile on Keith’s face was enough to have Lance grinning, still reeling with disbelief but settled by that happy look.

“No Lance, engaged in combat. _Yeah_ marriage engaged.”

“Oh my god!”

“You sound so shocked.”

“Cause it’s _you!_ ”

“Me? What does that mean?”

Keith’s smile faltered, trying to piece together what Lance meant.

“No, not like… I didn’t mean like that. I’m just surprised, is all. I didn’t really pin you for a marriage person.”

“What?”

Keith was still smiling, but frowning at the same time.

“I mean come on,” Lance said, trying to defend himself while not offending Keith. “You can’t tell me Keith Kogane, rebel extraordinaire, top of his class fighter pilot, signature bad boy and lone wolf, has been dreaming about getting hitched since he was a wee child stealing other peoples lunch money and beating my ass in fighter class.”

“Wolves travel in packs-“

“ _Keeeeeith_ -“

“I’ve actually always wanted to get married,” Keith said, calmly this time. “I didn’t think it was gonna be so hard to believe.”

Lance pouted, earning another chuckle from Keith.

“Fine, so I had my friend pinned all wrong. Happy?”

“Delighted.”

“Tell me more so I can find out what other Keith biases I have. _Were_ engaged? Aren’t you anymore?”

With a shake of his head, Keith looked away.

“Nah. It wasn’t bad though. We met doing aid work and he was a good guy, just not… right? I broke it off two years ago, and it was only for a short time anyway.”

Keith looked down, smiling sadly, and Lance felt there was more, wanted to know what that more was, but was unwilling to push.

“I think I got a bit ahead of myself trying to chase after that happy ending.”

“Happy _ending?_ C’mon dude, we’re in our twenties,” Lance joked, trying to get that smile back.

It worked, and Keith was back to looking happy. At least, more than before.

“Like I said, I used to think it _aaall_ ended with that final fight.”

“I know right, this is way worse. Now we have to figure out what to do with the rest of our _lives_.”

“Exactly!”

Lance chuckled at the enthusiasm with which Keith answered. It was weird, conversing after all this time, but maybe not horrible. Keith waited for him to change lanes around a slow going truck before continuing.

“So that’s me, in a minute. What have you been up to?”

Lance huffed, blowing air out through his teeth and tapping his fingers against the wheel, trying to think.

“I… I don’t know. I’ve been doing stuff. Instructing.”

“Yeah? I heard that was going really well, it’s kinda prestigious and all.”

“ _Prestigious_ , I’m teaching kids how to fly.”

“You’re teaching the world’s best, Lance. The galaxies best, even. Give yourself some credit man, the rest of the world does.”

Lance smiled tightly, trying to convince Keith with it.

“You can’t lie,” Keith said smugly. “Seriously, Shiro sends _letters_. Like actual letters, tells me what you guys are up to. It’s like we’re all his kids who he loves to brag about. You’re definitely a favourite child.”

The laughter caught Lance by surprise, but it wasn’t unwelcome.

“You kidding?”

“Nope. He sends me pictures of all of Hunk’s recipes he tries to cook. I have a signed autograph of Pidge, except for some reason Shiro gave it to me, not her. Plus, that one time he sat in on one of your classes? I pretty much got a full transcript.”

“No. You have got to be joking. That’s so embarrassing!”

“I’m not! You have excellent posture when you address the class, Lance. Apparently you intimidate Iverson sometimes. Oh, but you did spell my name wrong when you were giving a run-down on my past flight scores.”

“And that,” Lance said smugly. “Was on purpose.”

Keith scoffed. “Of course it was.”

“You can’t expect me to change,” Lance said with a grin.

“I don’t.”

The words came out more sincere than perhaps Keith had intended, because it made them both pause. There was that tickle of awkward energy again, of unfinished business, and secrets, and _more._

“Hey, you mind if I put on some music?”

“Please.”

-

They stopped for gas around lunchtime, pulled the car into a service station along the freeway and stood beside it as Lance scored over an honest to god paper map.

“Authenticity,” he said, when he noticed Keith’s sceptical look.

The man shrugged, biting into the sandwich he held.

“Why’d you need it? I thought we were just following the highway.”

“Uh, one, don’t talk with food in your mouth. Two, I’m planning for the big picture, Keith. Like, I think I want to make it to Veronica. For Christmas, you know?”

“Sounds good,” Keith mumbled, trying to hide the fact that he still had sandwich in his mouth.

“You’re free to bail anytime, you know that right?”

“Yes, but, no thanks.”

Keith shot him a tight smile, tugging his gloves out of his pockets to don them.

“I just want to go.”

Lance sighed, realising there really wasn’t any way to dislodge his unexpected companion. He gazed briefly at the man before him, at Keith, with his dumb gloves that still didn’t cover his fingers, and his messy pony, and the way he shifted from foot to foot to try and keep warm.

“First I think we should head south,” Lance announced. “Get the hell out’ve the cold.”

“It’s still cold in the south.”

“It’s less cold.”

“That’s a big detour from Veronica?”

“We have time.”

Keith shot him a look as if to say _then let’s go_.

“I have no idea what the hell you’re doing here,” Lance muttered.

“Yeah, me neither. But, lead the way team leader.”

“Ooh, team leader revoking his leadership?”

“Hey, only for this road trip.”

“You gonna try usurp my truck from me?” Lance joked as he made his way back towards his door.

“Pretty sure _you_ took _my_ lion,” Keith shot back with a grin.

“Mm, pretty sure your lion _chose_ me. As, you know, the coolest paladin.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Keith muttered as they pulled out from the station, but Lance didn’t miss his smile or slight tease to his tone.

-

They ended up driving until sunset, the thrill of freedom keeping them from boredom, letting their eyes rake across the landscapes they passed through, of forests, and farmland, and town after town. Still very much in the midst of civilisation, they stopped the night at a motel in the outer suburbs of another city. It was dark by the time they pulled into the little lot, beneath a bright lit motel sign advertising vacancy. Keith blinked up at the white and purple lights, zipping up his jacket before hopping out the car. Lance met him on their walk to reception, just a pack on his shoulders and the car keys jingling as they dangled from his fingers.

There was a woman behind the desk in reception, caught up in a book with the radio playing over her shoulder. She glanced up when they came in, setting her book aside to boot up the computer. Keith was shivering slightly; obviously he’d acclimatised to warmer climates during his missions. Lance urged him through the door, shutting out the cold behind them as Keith approached the desk. They’d already started up a conversation by the time Lance wandered over, and he admired how much Keith had developed socially. In the past, he’d have been the last person to be smiling at the receptionist and asking her about the weather, but here he was, thanking her for setting them up with a room so late and smiling at the tabby cat Lance spotted resting by her feet.

“A double bed alright for you?”

Keith paused for a moment too long, or perhaps it just felt long given the bolt of terror that went through Lance.

“No,” he blurted, interrupting their polite conversation and planting an elbow on the counter. “Uh, no, two singles please.”

Keith glanced at him out’ve the corner of his eye, but Lance refused to believe it was because of that request. What? It was entirely normal for them to need separate beds, was it… was it the way he said it? Had he said that too loud? A little embarrassed, Lance withdrew himself from the counter, lingering by the doorway while Keith finished up their booking. The man joined him a moment later, a smile on his face and a set of keys in hand.

“I know I nearly stabbed you in my sleep,” he said. “But it was only once.”

“Oh _haha_ ,” Lance muttered as Keith grinned and gestured down the hall.

Their room was small, but had everything they needed. Two beds, _thank god_ , a television, a small closet, and a bathroom attached. Keith dumped his pack down on the bed nearest the door and sighed, turning in a circle to inspect the room. He wandered over to the television, carefully running his fingers along the tops and bottom.

“Dude, are you seriously checking for cameras?”

Keith withdrew his hand quickly, tucking it guiltily into his pocket.

“Sorry, just, a habit.”

Lance waved him off. “It’s fine man, whatever helps you sleep. I mean it.”

Keith paused, something pained in his eyes, like he wanted to believe Lance but didn’t.

“Do you… do you want first shower? Then I can-“

He gestured briefly around the room, still looking sheepish. He wanted to search the room, make sure there were no hidden spy devices or traps or anything else that could endanger them. And Lance knew there was nothing, and Keith knew there was nothing; but if he didn’t check he wouldn’t sleep, and Lance was capable of realising that much.

“I sure do,” he answered with an easy smile.

Keith visibly exhaled, shuffling from foot to foot, not even moving to unpack anything until Lance had grabbed what supplies he needed and headed for the bathroom. The last thing he saw before shutting the door was Keith moving to check the curtains. Lance sighed, dumping his belongings by the sink and switching on the shower. Keith was obviously ashamed of that fear he held, that they were still in danger, but Lance understood. He’d just… found other ways around it. It hurt a little to think of Keith trying to settle into a new place, having the search the room while avoiding the judgement or concern it might raise. Still, there was nothing Lance could do about it, just let Keith do his thing and ignore it if that was what helped.

To him, it was a relief to be somewhere new. Especially out here, where no one knew him, he could blend into any landscape and town and crappy motel room. The shower was warm and soothing, easing the slight tension in his body from driving all day. This is where he needed to be, nowhere, no place thought out, no intentions. He’d have to do more eventually, sure. But the universe didn’t need him, not right now, not on a wintery night in some town off the highway, in a cheap motel with a packaged soap bar and tucked sheets and a small patch of mould spreading from the ceiling. It could all… wait a bit. Like it should have. It all should have waited until he wasn’t a kid, and maybe then he’d stop feeling so robbed.

Keith was done with his room inspection by the time Lance emerged, and was sitting on the bed with a small communication device. He shut it the second Lance entered, glancing at him and looking away immediately when he noticed the other was only in a towel. Another thing unchanged about Keith- he was still ridiculously easy to embarrass.

“Showers yours.”

Keith nodded a thanks, springing up from the bed and disappearing into the bathroom. Lance glanced at the communication decide he’d left on his bed, but didn’t dare touch it. He imagined it was a way to contact Krolia, or the other Blade members. Maybe a way to speak to his ex-fiance-

The shower began running, and Lance tore himself away from the communicator. His bed was nearest the window, and he could easily guess why Keith had chosen the one by the door. There wasn’t much He needed from his pack, so Lance soon settled down on his bed, pulling out his phone and daring to look at the messages from people. He wasn’t going to reply to anyone, only Rachel, since he’d promised that much to Keith. She’d tell the others he was alive, and quite honestly that was all Lance wanted them to know. He loved his family and friends, but right now he needed the quiet. He didn’t need updates, and he didn’t need them worrying; he just needed to be gone, for a little bit.

Sleep was not going to come tonight, at least not without the aid of something. Keith arriving had been too much, and despite how tired he was from driving, Lance could barely sit still, let alone drift off. It was a little unfortunate that Keith walked out as Lance was closing up the small flask he carried, but all it earned him was a small, curious frown, before Keith was turning away and getting into his own bed. Still, Lance waited for a comment as he lay there, watching Keith retreat beneath the covers and swallowing away the bitter taste of alcohol.

“You need the lights on?” Keith asked.

“No.”

“Okay.”

A pause, and those eyes darted between Lance and the floor a good few times before Keith rolled over and hit the switch.

“Goodnight.”

Did Keith sleep? Was checking the room for threats really enough for him to drift right off? If Lance’s memory served, Keith never seemed to sleep anyway on the castle, was always training or fighting or just wandering the damn halls with nothing to do until Lance came along to annoy him. He wasn’t making a sound, had just rolled into a ball beneath the blankets and wasn’t moving. Lance could only hope Keith had found some sort of peace over the last six years.

He shut his eyes, waiting for the familiar haze to overcome his mind so he’d have a chance at drifting off. Knowing Keith was right there wasn’t helping, nor was the reality of what they’d undertaken today. There wasn’t any going back; even if Lance turned the car around tomorrow, it wouldn’t feel finished. He had to go, had to be away from it all, had to find a way and something that made sense. Because so far it just wasn’t. Eventually it stopped mattering how great the instructing was, and how much he loved being near his family, and how things were calmer. Because nothing had ever waited for Lance, just _waited_ , and now he needed time, and he needed more. He tried to ignore the hopeful voice in his head asking if Keith fit into the equation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not proof read this apologies


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so so much for the kudos and comments last chapter!! <3 <3 <3 you're all so lovely

One night alone with Keith in a motel room did not go as disastrously as Lance had anticipated. It went quite ordinarily, actually. He managed to sleep a couple hours, and it seemed as if Keith did too- at least, he was curled up asleep when Lance woke early the following morning. Then it was just back into the swing of things. The motel had a basic complimentary breakfast, and Lance watched with vague interest as Keith lathered jam onto a slice of toast while still half asleep, constantly flicking back a strand of hair with rising irritation as it flopped onto his meal. When Keith gave up and began angrily tying it all back into a pony, Lance had to look away.

He skimmed the news on his phone, a good news site that Hunk had jokingly suggested, but Lance enjoyed reading from time to time. He didn’t want to start this day off with some disheartening piece to put him in a foul mood. In fact, he was determined to be happy. So happy he played the music louder in the car, allowed himself to sing along to it carelessly and bask in the laughter it drew from Keith. They were leaving suburbia now, heading further into the heart of the country and further from the population densities. What once had been industrial zones was now farmland, and Lance took them on a detour off the highway for the hell of it, rolled down the windows until they were ready to freeze, just to breathe in the air and taste the remnants of frost as the sun grew from dawn to day.

It was easy to be happy on days like this, when he was behind the wheel of a car headed nowhere in particular, an old friend buckled into the passenger seat while his voice and laughter reaffirmed the sounds Lance feared he’d forgotten. How could it be, that Keith was here now? It seemed so impossible, so far-fetched; how was Keith not just… gone? How hadn’t he died in the war, how had neither of them? How hadn’t he rejected his place as the red paladin all those years ago, how hadn’t they lost him the day they nearly lost everyone?

Allura was in Lance’s mind now, her image so clear and crisp it stung. The cold air was billowing in through the windows and then it felt as if the frost was forming over his cheeks. There were two hard points of ice glinting on his cheekbones and suddenly the day didn’t feel as fresh or as freeing as it had before. Lance loved Allura, would always love her, like one would anyone who had touched their life so brilliantly; he did not love _these_. Those little marks on his cheeks, that could not be scrubbed off, or dampened, or darkened. They were just there for him to stare at, to wake up and see when he came before the bathroom mirror, to catch his eye when he caught a glimpse of his reflection in a shop window or car mirror or _any_ goddam thing. They were there for him to look at and remember how very far away she was, to remember that no matter how desperately he wanted to see her and to talk to her and to just know where she was, he couldn’t. And that was never going to change.

Keith coughed, but it wasn’t because he’d noticed how tightly Lance was gripping the wheel, it was just coincidence. He broke the spiral in any case, left Lance staring at him without his knowledge, having no idea the effect he had. How hadn’t Keith died in the war? How hadn’t Keith left with the blades forever? How hadn’t Keith gotten married to another man, left his home on Earth and disappeared into space, where Lance might see him once in a decade, where they’d meet briefly at grand alliance meetings and exchange a few formal words then joke about how the other had aged. Would Keith’s hair be longer, how tired would he look? How in love? Would he take his husband’s hand when he first introduced them, smile at Lance but look away just as quickly, to stand before him but stare into the eyes of the man he was actually in love with. How wasn’t Keith a million light years away, how hadn’t he been swept up into a thousand other possibilities and lives, how was he here in this stupid car instead of any other reality where he was in love and he’d moved on and he was gone before Lance even got the chance to-

“Hey, you want me to get that call?”

Lance flinched, reality smacking into him in a rush of colour and sound. His eyes felt wet, _stupid_ , and his fingers ached where he was gripping the wheel. He hadn’t been watching the road at all, only Keith, with this _dumb fucking miserable_ expression on his face. Lance inhaled sharply, glancing at the empty road and quickly winding up his window to block out the frigid air.

“Lance?”

Oh, right, his phone was ringing. Keith held it in his hand, thumb hovering over the answer button but waiting for a confirmation. It only took Lance a brief glance at the contact information to know who it was.

“No, ignore it.”

Keith frowned. “You sure? It’s… Ruth Pike. Hey wasn’t she… she’s Garrison, right? Yeah she’s with recruitment-“

“I said ignore it!” Lance snapped, as Keith went to hit answer.

The man froze, glancing at him.

“Lance?”

“Just ignore it, okay? I don’t want to talk.”

“O…kay.”

Keith set the phone down. It was still ringing, rung for a painfully long few seconds before finally surrendering and displaying a missed call. For a minute, silence.

“Ruth’s from recruitment. I know, I correspond with her about the aid work sometimes.”

“That’s fascinating,” Lance snapped. “Truly.”

Keith’s eyes darted between Lance and the phone, but he was dutifully ignored.

“Why couldn’t I answer that?”

Lance scoffed. “Why do you care?”

“Because just by the way you _told_ me not to answer it, it seems like you’ve ignored her calls before.”

Keith waited for a response, staring at Lance from the passenger’s side as the world rushed past around them and the air howled through a tiny gap in the window.

“Lance? Can you tell me what’s going on?”

“Pretty sure no questions was a deal we had.”

“That’s gonna make communicating really goddam difficult,” Keith said, sounding a little annoyed.

Lance shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Lance.”

“Why are you so invested! Do you have nothing better to do than hound me down, follow me around, and interrogate me?” Lance snapped.

He realised it was a bit of an overreaction a little too late, after Keith’s expression had already shifted from irritable to shocked.

“I… I’m sorry,” Lance mumbled, noting the others silence.

A glance to his right told him that Keith was pinned to his seat, watching Lance with wide, wide eyes and a somewhat damaged expression.

“I didn’t… look man I shouldn’t have said that, alright? I’m sorry it’s just- I’m really tense, about that Pike thing. They’re trying to recruit me into a diplomatic role. You know, travel around from planet to planet and… and I guess it’s kinda like what Allura wanted, once. Not really, actually. No, ok it’s not that but… doesn’t matter I just don’t want it.”

Lance couldn’t meet Keith’s eye, was afraid he’d find hurt and offence there, and it was all his fault. He focused on the road instead, on the straight stretch of tar, on the weeds and grasses creeping over its edges, on the endless fields-

“Why don’t you want it?” Keith asked softly.

It was asked so gently, cautious but not afraid, just wanting to know.

“Why _would_ I?” Lance scoffed, trying to play off the slight quiver in his voice.

“I don’t know,” said Keith. “It just… sounds like everything you wanted.”

“ _Does_ it,” Lance said, feeling a familiar anger rise in his chest.

“Yes. Travelling to other planets, still returning to Earth-“

“You don’t know anything, alright Keith? You don’t know anything, about what I want, or what job I should take, so drop it.”

“It just seems like there’s another reason you’re avoiding this-“

“There’s not.”

“Lance, I know-“

“What? What do you know? You think you can sort it all out, is that why you’re here, Keith? I know what I’m doing, I know what’s best for me. Did you come running back to Earth for _me_ , to help _me?_ No, Keith, I think you’re back on Earth cause you’re scared. Maybe before you ask all these questions you should remember I’m not the only one running away.”

The silence was deafening now. Keith opened his mouth, shut it quickly, looked away with a deep frown etched into his forehead. He crossed his arms, curled towards the passenger door, and hid his face from Lance. Lance could feel his hands shaking around the wheel, biting his lip to stop himself from saying another stupid, stupid thing.

“Sorry I asked,” Keith muttered.

Lance’s stomach fell like a stone, the whistle of wind through the crack in the window growing unbearably loud, until all he wanted to do was to talk and shout over it. But he didn’t talk, and neither did Keith. The road stretched on, and they re-joined the freeway with eyes still averted from one another and a cold block of silence between them.

Morning turned to midday, which turned to afternoon. Keith donned sunglasses but Lance knew he wasn’t asleep, could tell by the tight expression on his face, and the fact he couldn’t stop his fingers tapping anxiously against his arm. Motel’s were scattered here, and out of fear of not finding another, Lance cut their driving short sometime in the late afternoon. Realising he could escape the stifling silence of the car, Keith was out with his pack over his shoulder before Lance had even shut off the engine. Instead of heading for the motel with Lance, he went straight for the tree line, towards a track Lance spied heading off into the nearby farmland. That was fine, let them both get some air. Lance checked them in so long, couldn’t muster up much charm for the receptionist, just accepted the key he was given and trudged off towards their room.

This place was slightly bigger than the last, with a small outside patio where a plastic chair and table sat without being cleaned for years. Lance sat there anyway, stared out at the farmland and dying sun, held a book and pretended he could focus enough to read it. He knew he shouldn’t have said that to Keith, that it was harsher than he deserved, but Lance was so sick of Pike and the Garrison and anyone else who thought they knew what was best for him. It was none of Keith’s business why Lance wasn’t taking the job, didn’t matter if he was right. Travelling the universe sounded a dream, but then again, so had being a paladin, once. Lance wasn’t falling for it, not again. He might not have known what he wanted, but it wasn’t to get hurt; he’d had enough of that to last a lifetime.

Keith returned well after dark, right when Lance was getting ready for bed. He looked exhausted, and downtrodden, and angry. No words passed between them, but when Lance raised the flask to his lips, Keith’s eyes darkened. He continued to glare, even after Lance set it down and climbed into his own bed. It was disapproval, clear as day, but he didn’t care. Keith looked away with a scowl, tugging off his boots before climbing straight into bed.

“You not checking the room?”

“Fuck off Lance,” he muttered, turning over and burying himself beneath the covers.

Lance stared at him for a minute, the rise and fall of Keith’s shoulders, the air thick with a plea to be ignored. When Keith continued to say and do nothing, Lance gave in, flipping off the light and praying sleep came.

Which it did not. Not for hours. In the dark, Lance stared up at the murky ceiling, or through the crack in the curtains revealing the strip of pale moonlight. Keith fell asleep, surprisingly, curled up into an angry ball on his bed. It was unsurprising then, that the nightmares came when Lance was still awake.

At first they weren’t noticeable, as Keith shifted naturally in his sleep. But as Lance lay awake with nothing else to think of, the changes in his breathing and the noises he made became ever more apparent. Keith was dreaming, deep asleep but disturbed by something, beginning to shift minutely as if to make small, aborted movements at getting away. Lance rolled over when Keith let go a short cry, muffled by the blankets but easily heard in the quiet room. It was pitch dark now, only a slither of light spilling in from under the door, and all he could make out was the vague shape of Keith. It wasn’t obvious, or loud, he barely moved, as if he was tied down and fighting to escape a paralysed state. When Keith began crying in his sleep, Lance’s stomach clenched. In a blink, he was the one frozen, halfway out of bed but unable to move, caught between what to do. He could wake Keith, but then the other would be mortified. He could… fuck, Lance didn’t know. Didn’t know how to handle Keith when he had nightmares. Keith was a trained paladin, probably slept with a knife under his pillow, one he could use to attack Lance if he tried to come too close. Not that Lance couldn’t disarm him, but it wasn’t a situation he wanted to put either of them in.

Shiro probably knew what to do. Krolia probably knew what to do. Maybe Keith’s old fiancé knew-

Keith sat up like a jack in the box, gasping for air and swatting hair away from his face as if it was suffocating him. On instinct, Lance fell back down into bed, staring at Keith in the dark but remaining very, very still. Keith was heaving in air like a drowning man, choking on it as he caught his breath around the tears and flinching when he felt them on his cheeks. Lance watched his silhouette move, his hands wipe tears and sweat from his face, his shoulders trembling as he pushed himself out of bed and stripped off his wrinkled shirt. Then he just stood there, breathing, clutching a sweat-soaked shirt and swiping damp tears off his chin. In the dark, he looked at Lance, probably wondering if he’d woken him. Lance lay very still, letting Keith’s eyes wander over his sleeping form before exhaling softly. And then, Keith headed for the door.

Not the main one leading out into the hall, he headed for the glass slider, unclipped the lock, and rolled it back to open their room onto the patio. He shut it behind him, leaving just a tiny gap for the cold air to seep through. Although the curtains were mainly closed, when Lance rolled over he could see Keith standing in the moonlight, hands on hips as he drew deep breathes into his lungs. It was freezing out there, where he stood in just his pants. Keith didn’t seem to care.

Lance sat up very slowly, inching over to the side of his bed to watch Keith through the window. He kept tucking strands of hair behind his ears nervously, fiddling with his small communication device. When he turned, it illuminated his face for a short second, and Lance’s heart sunk at the sight of his distraught expression. Keith didn’t look so brave or so fierce like this, all teary eyed and shaky, skin sickly from the sweat, then the cold.

“Mom?”

His voice could barely be heard through the window pane, but Lance could read his lips before he withdrew from the light. There was a reply Lance could not hear, and then Keith was talking. He was speaking Galran, a language Lance knew enough of to recognise, but not understand. A word here or there that he’d come to learn, but nothing to piece together what they were talking about. Keith was shaking out there, and Lance needed to know he’d come back inside, wouldn’t freeze out there over night. But talking was more important to Keith than sleep, because he began to pace, wrapping an arm around his bare chest as he clutched the communicator to his ear and spoke and cried and listened to his mother. And Lance simply waited, watched from the window with baited breath as Keith got colder, and broke down at the sound of Krolia’s voice, and stared up at the dark sky and the silver moon and looked just as lost and uncertain and afraid as Lance.

It took him half an hour to come back inside, by which stage Keith was shaking so badly he could barely breathe. Lance lay very still, hating himself for not getting over himself and his fear and dragging Keith inside sooner so he had an actual in the flesh human to talk to. All he did though, all he could do, was watch as Keith pulled a jumper over his head and very slowly and shakily began running his hands along the doorway. He went from there to the closet, to his bed, to the bathroom. He was checking the room, biting back tears that Lance could hear straining against his composure if he listened hard enough. Silent as a mouse, he checked the head and foot of Lance’s bed, then the curtains, then the coat hook by the door.

When Keith was done checking the room for dangers, he went back to bed, sitting there in the middle of the covers with his head in his hands. It was hell when he cried quietly like that, when Lance didn’t move for fear of upsetting him further. Who was he kidding? He didn’t know the first thing about helping Keith. They were useless to each other like this, and time hadn’t been kind to their understanding each other. Lance didn’t know if Keith slept at all, just knew he drifted in and out of consciousness, waiting for another nightmare to crop up so perhaps this time he wouldn’t remain so passive.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey @ literally everyone reading this I love you and owe you each a portion of my soul

“ _Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older-_ “

This could not be the first time this song had played, there was just no possible way a singular song could last so long. Someone had it on repeat, Keith was sure of it, and when he found them, he was going to kill them.

“ _And wouldn’t it be nice to live together in the kind of world where we belong-_ “

His head was killing him, and it was a fight to keep his eyes open, and all in all he just felt like _shit_. Lance seemed to be acting like less of a dickhead this morning, but then again, Keith hadn’t been paying much attention. They checked out too fucking early, had started driving too fucking early, and were now splayed out in the bright red booth of a roadside diner as Lance skimmed the menu for breakfast. _Too fucking early._

“ _Happy times together we’d be spending-_ “

Keith didn’t want breakfast.

“ _I wish that every kiss was never ending-_ “

Keith hadn’t slept. And this stupid song wasn’t helping.

“Uuuh, yeah, could I get the eggs on toast. Scrambled, please. Oh, and orange juice. Hey Keith, what do you want?”

Keith glared at Lance from across the table, well aware of the dark circles under his eyes.

“I’m not hungry,” he muttered.

At least, he meant to mutter. He couldn’t muster up any irritation though, he just sounded goddam miserable. Lance’s brow furrowed, and Keith zoned out as he continued talking to the waitress. Now that Keith was thinking about it, he wasn’t really angry or irritable at all. He just felt… empty. Nightmares did that to him, especially ones that bad, left him drained and despondent. Talking with his mom had helped a little, but it could never erase those images, the wild blur of memories and fiction fighting together in his mind to create a hellscape of Keith’s worst fears. He was tired of them, of everything. Of Lance.

Keith’s eyes shifted to the man seated before him, just briefly, so Lance failed to notice. Perhaps tired wasn’t the right word; one could never be tired of Lance. It didn’t matter how much he spoke or how many dumb jokes he made or how often he was butting into things- that was just _him_ , and once you loved him you couldn’t stop. All his flaws, no matter how infuriating, made him more _Lance_ and more lovable, somehow. Flaws didn’t matter, not when he was so brilliant. There were few people like that, Keith thought, maybe no people, at least not to him. Others passed through his life but they were never as meaningful, never stuck to his heart like the man across from him. Lance defined the world, somehow. He defined blue and he defined the night sky and he defined the shape of a person Keith saw as perfect. Not perfect in a broader sense, not perfect by definition at all, but perfect specifically to Keith, the perfect find and the perfect fit, who no one and nothing could dislodge.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t look at Lance now with the desire to tear into him. Lance could still be rude and hurtful and _human_ ; because Keith knew he wasn’t cruel. Still, words hurt, especially when they struck so close to home. He’d only been trying to help, to understand what Lance was running from; there was no need for the other to get so snappish. There was no need for him to take a jab at Keith’s reality and Keith’s past; they were private, and the thought of it all coming out…

Was terrifying.

“Eggs on toast?”

The waitress was back at their table, jolting Keith from his thoughts. He sat up with a start, blinking the slight haze out’ve his eyes as Lance beamed up at the waitress and accepted his breakfast. Keith was still rubbing the sleep out his eyes when a second plate was set down in front of him, this one piled high with food. He blinked at it, then at the waitress who was quickly retreating from their table.

“Oh, I didn’t order-“

“I got it for you,” Lance said with a nod at the plate.

He then shovelled a piece of toast into his mouth to avoid Keith’s questioning look.

“But I wasn’t hungry.”

“Well, you uh… you looked like you needed to eat.”

Keith looked down at the plate; it was heaped with bacon and eggs and potatoes and just about every other breakfast food he could imagine. Lance had ordered the biggest meal off the menu by the looks of it, and Keith couldn’t for the life of him work out why.

“Just eat what you can,” said Lance. “Even if it’s just a little.”

He looked… concerned? Lance definitely looked concerned, and sorry, and guilty, and a tad ashamed. _What the hell?_ Keith was tempted to ask, but Lance was trying hard to convey how much he wanted to avoid the subject, piling eggs onto his fork and looking anywhere but Keith. And _dammit_ , as much as he would’ve loved the satisfaction of ignoring that meal, Keith’s stomach was protesting loudly. Bad dreams aside, now that there was a steaming plate of food in front of him… he sighed, justifying a few bites couldn’t hurt. He did muster up a glare at the short lived grin that flashed across Lance’s face as he began to eat, determined to retain some composure.

It wasn’t until Keith had gotten through half the plate that Lance finally spoke up. He’d spent the last ten minutes fiddling nervously with his fork, casting looks in Keith’s direction and tilting his glass again and again in the hopes the ice would have melted enough to drink. Eventually Keith gave in and held his gaze until Lance was forced to pay attention; the waiting was killing him.

“There’s a national park,” Lance blurted. “Along the way. Well it’s a little detour, but only little, and I guess I thought maybe if you wanted we could spend tonight there instead of in a motel or… or something. I’ve got a tent, and supplies. It’s just up to you.”

A pause, his eyes couldn’t quite settle.

“I don’t know. Depends if you can… I don’t know if you like sleeping outside. If it’s better than… than a room. Less stressful. I don’t know.”

Keith was stuck on what to say for a moment, eyeing Lance with slight suspicion, and then… relief.

“Uh, yeah. I would like that.”

“Oh,” said Lance. “Cool.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah. Yes, that’s good. That’s… where we’re headed, then.”

“Okay.”

Keith broke his gaze, going back to his breakfast that was honestly turning out to be the best part of his week. _Apology accepted_ , though he wasn’t letting Lance know yet.

“I’m sorry about yesterday, by the way.”

An actual apology was… less expected. Keith looked back up, into Lance’s eyes that were brimming with guilt.

“I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I was stressed but that wasn’t an excuse to take it out on you.”

“Oh,” said Keith. “Thank… you. I’m sorry too. Sorry I pushed you to talk. You don’t… have to.”

Lance nodded his thanks, looking genuinely surprised that his apology had been accepted. He let Keith eat for another few minutes, glancing down every now and then to try and conceal a small smile.

“We’re both still idiots,” he announced, finally, when Keith was defeated by the breakfast. “But at least we’re better at some things.”

Keith snorted. “Marginally better.”

“Way better.”

“Somewhat.”

“Tremendously.”

“A fair amount?”

“Deal.”

Lance beamed, rapping his knuckles against the table.

“Shall we go?”

“Yeah. But you’re paying.”

-

The greatest thing about reaching the forest was the sudden death of background noise. The hum, the buzz that was always there, from vehicles and houses and distant machinery, it was swallowed up by the first few lines of trees, and drowned within their leafy clutches. It wasn’t a relief until Keith realised how badly he’d needed it. In space, things were often silent, but it wasn’t the comforting type. This, this was different, this was genuine peace and something Keith hadn’t had in a long time. He wondered how Lance knew it was what he needed, or perhaps Lance needed the same thing. No, this seemed to be for Keith, and they knew that. Lance kept glancing his way and smiling, then playing it off by cracking a joke or pointing out something he saw in the forest as they wound their way deep into the park.

They hadn’t driven too far to get here, to the little national park made of sprawling trees and sparse lakes. It meant they weren’t making much progress, but since progress wasn’t so much defined for them, it seemed to be okay. If they didn’t make it to Veronica’s, then they just didn’t. Maybe they’d make it nowhere, just drive in circles until something happened that made all of this less pointless.

“ _Aaaand_ , welcome to our campsite.”

Keith glanced up as Lance pulled off the road, stopping the car at the end of a grassy clearing overlooking a small lake with tea brown water. The smell of pines was strong here, and when Keith stepped out the truck to stretch his legs, layers of fallen needles cushioned his boots. It wasn’t an official campsite by a long shot, no showers or electricity, but Keith saw evidence of a fire pit showing the area wasn’t entirely unused. When he drew breathe, he could taste the freshness of the air, the slight tea-tree wafting off the water, then the deep scent of the pine trees pushing breeze through them.

“Think this’ll do?”

“This is great,” Keith answered honestly, turning to give Lance a smile. “You been here before?”

“Nope. But I figured it’d be nice. Wanna set up camp?”

“Sure.”

The tent Lance had brought was a tiny two man one, but it would work well enough for sleeping. He’d clearly intended on spending some time outside, because he’d also come equipped with a gas light, cooking supplies, water, and just about anything else they’d need. Including-

“You have a _fishing rod?_ What were you gonna do, fish for your own food?”

“Hey hey hey, do I need to remind you that you’re a _guest_ on this trip? Your contract can be terminated at anytime?”

Keith snorted, laying the fishing rod back in the truck in order to keep rummaging through Lance’s supplies. Just past midday now, a rare break in the cold was forced by the sun shining harshly down, enough for Keith to have removed his shoes and ditched his jacket. Warm enough certainly for him to explore Lance’s truck properly.

“Why haven’t we been playing any of these CD’s?” He asked, grinning as he held up a Celine Dion collection.

“Because those are Lance CD’s,” Lance snarled. “For Lance. Not you, you ruined ever playing those CD’s when you _crashed_ my road trip.”

“ _No_ ,” Keith gasped in feigned awe, “you mean you’ve been holding out playing these to save yourself from embarrassment?”

Lance glowered at him, shaking his head as he went back to hammering another peg into the tent.

“A knitting book,” said Keith. “Nice.”

“Why the hell are you going through my stuff, Kogane?”

“For fun. Do you have the knitting supplies on you?”

“No,” said Lance. “No I do not. Because when I envisioned my peaceful road trip, I envisioned stopping places, and doing things, for _me_.”

“Wow, what a bummer,” Keith said, still grinning.

He narrowly avoided laughing at Lance’s long-suffering groan. As much as he was enjoying making fun of the ex-paladin, it was actually interesting, seeing what he’d brought. A lot of books, some practical, some for entertainment, in addition to a whole stack of music. He had a small gaming device, and a card deck he and Hunk used to play endlessly, as well as a pair of chunky headphones Pidge had given him after always stealing his old ones. One of the books was filled with recipes taken down in Lance’s own handwriting, with little notes scribbled into the margins when he chose to correct something. Keith took note of but avoided the bag containing far too many skin care products, and avoided rummaging through Lance’s clothes as well. He only spoke again when he stumbled upon a picture frame, but this time it wasn’t to tease.

“Hey, is this your family?”

Lance glanced up briefly from where he’d just finished securing the tent, and Keith wished he could ignore how good he looked with his shirt sleeves rolled up and that unassuming frown on his face.

“Oh,” said Lance, also staring for too long, too intensely, before answering. “Yeah.”

He cleared his throat, rising from the tent and brushing stray needles off the knees of his pants.

“Yeah, that’s all of them. Our most recent picture together, anyway.”

“Sylvio and Nadia, they’re so big now.”

“Heh, well, kids tend to do that. Grow up.”

“This is crazy,” Keith murmured, gazing at the various members of Lance’s family. “I kind of forget people change so much, when you don’t see them.”

Lance was closer now, closer than Keith would have liked, in fact, because now with him leaning over his shoulder to peer at the picture, Keith was forced to confront just how tempting it was to lean back and just touch him. Just a bump of a shoulder, or to rest lightly against Lance. Something little, something harmless, something that was still entirely off limits.

“Which reminds me,” said Lance, breaking the spell Keith was under. “I haven’t seen or heard from your family in ages.”

“What?”

“I was promised a Kosmo picture everyday dude, it’s literally been years.”

“Oh,” said Keith. “You… want to see Kosmo?”

“Yeah man! I’m practically dying over here without my regular space dog check-ins.”

Keith scoffed lightly, making sure to put another foot of space between them as he fished out his phone so he’d stand a chance at concentrating.

“Kosmo’s still the same,” he said. “Krolia thinks he’s put on weight, I think he’s just fluffier.”

“I’ve never heard you use the word fluff _ier_. Not even fluffy.”

Keith rolled his eyes, turning his phone to Lance so the other could see his pride and joy, Kosmo, curled up asleep at Keith’s feet aboard a small fighter vessel. He smiled wide at Lance’s cooing, flicking through pictures with more enthusiasm now. It wasn’t too often other blade members wanted to gaze at pictures of his dog; Keith had almost forgotten that humans were so much more agreeable about such things. All Kolivan would do was berate Kosmo for chewing on his shoes, then secretly pet his ears when he thought Keith wasn’t watching.

“Oh wow! Krolia cut her hair?”

“Hm?”

Keith glanced at the picture he’d flicked to, smirking at his mother’s abruptly shortened hair.

“Not exactly. She was trying to grow it out but a bunch of kids playing with a blaster on our aid planet blew it off. Nearly took her head; I think they were lucky Kolivan was there to hold her back.”

Keith chuckled, remembering how hard it had been to sympathise with his mother and her newly shortened hair instead of laughing aloud like he’d wanted too.

“Yeah? Someone ought to do that to your hair sometime soon.”

“Hey!”

“I’m kidding!” Lance yelped a Keith went to elbow him. “It actually looks good! Like this, it, uh… yeah, it suits.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, you know, it… is good?”

“Thanks?”

“Can I see more pictures of Kosmo?” Lance stammered.

“Yeah. Yeah, ok, here-“

Keith hastily selected another folder on his phone, one with some older pictures including his dog. The awkward air easily dissipated with another picture of Kosmo to charm them on the screen. He explained briefly to Lance pictures featuring planet or people besides Kosmo, and watched him nod along and smile at the pictures of alien children crowding around the dog. Keith got a little lost in that smile, a little distracted, so it came as a cold shock when the next picture he flipped to left him staring at the face of his ex, who was happily hugging Kosmo and smiling at the camera, at Keith. He changed it in an instant, but it wasn’t quick enough for Lance to miss it.

“Who was that?”

“No one.”

Keith cringed; there was literally no reason for him to lie.

“No, I mean- that’s, uh, my ex.”

“Oh. The one you were engaged…”

“Yeah.”

Neither was paying attention to the next picture, just trapped in their silent little worlds trying to escape the situation.

“He looks nice,” said Lance.

“We really don’t need to talk about him,” said Keith, and shut off his phone.

He forced a smile at Lance, desperate for a change of subject.

“Hey, do you know if there are any hiking trails around here? That’d be good, after being stuck in the car.”

“Yeah,” Lance replied quickly, almost over-enthusiastic. “Yeah! I was looking them up before we came, actually. Finish setting up then a walk?”

Keith’s smile was real now. “I’d like that.”

The walk took them deeper into the forest, during the breezy afternoon once the tent was set up and the contents of the car in order. Keith thought it was all very beautiful, realised how little time he’d had back on Earth to appreciate it all again. It was easy to become numb, in space, even if one was visiting other picturesque planets. Without some sense of familiarity, or belonging, nothing truly fit and felt as good as this.

Lance walked a few feet ahead of him with a small backpack drooped off his shoulders, grabbing at plants he thought interesting along the way and occasionally humming pieces of songs Keith thought he’d heard once, a very long time ago. They walked to the top of a small hill, and there emerged from the tree line to look out over the miles of forest below. It was there they spent a considerable amount of time exploring, or sitting on the rocks jutting out towards the cliffs edge and talking. Keith took comfort in the fact his phone had no reception here; there’d be no calls from their family or friends, none from Coran about alliance meetings and certainly none from the Garrison. No one to pester them, no one to draw that dark storm cloud over Lance again.

“I think,” Lance said after quite some time, “that if we hadn’t joined Voltron, I’d probably have beat your simulator score by now.”

Keith scoffed, then said, “uh, no, cause if we hadn’t joined Voltron, the world would be under Galra occupation-“

“Hypothetically, Keith!”

Lance shook his head, unable to smother his smile at Keith’s instantaneous answer.

“In a hypothetical world. No Galra, no Shiro going missing, just us being dumb kids at the Garrison with no real purpose in mind. What would have happened?”

“Uuh,” said Keith. “You would have beat my simulator score, apparently.”

“Okay smart guy, you know that was a joke. I’m talking seriously now. Cause I reckon my life would’ve been _waaay_ different.”

“How so?” Keith asked, curious now.

Lance shrugged. “ _You_ know, I’d keep being a bitter little shit about your flight scores until we graduated. Probably would’ve made it into fighter class eventually, even if you hadn’t gotten kicked out. Then I’d… god, it’s so hard to know. Maybe I’d have gone to space in a more peaceful manner, huh? Bet I would’ve impulsively married the first girl to look at me twice. Then, oh, I bet I’d try and grow a beard. Just boring, kind of perfect, life things.”

“You’d look terrible with a beard,” said Keith.

“So you _do_ have an opinion on hair.”

“Shut up.”

Lance chuckled. “So what about you?”

“Hm?”

“In this hypothetical world, what would you have done?”

“Oh.”

Keith paused. He looked from Lance, down to his hands, eyes eventually settling on the moss growing just by their feet.

“I don’t know,” said Keith. “I hadn’t thought about it.”

“Well, think about it now.”

“Why?”

Lance shrugged. “It’s fun.”

_Fun?_ Keith doubted that.

“I… I don’t know,” he repeated. “I don’t think I had much direction before Voltron.”

“You would have found one though.”

Lance sounded so damn sure of himself.

“You didn’t lose Shiro in this world, you-“

“Yeah I know that,” Keith said suddenly, cutting him off.

He sighed, regretting speaking quite so harshly going off the look on Lance’s face. With a pinched expression, Keith continued.

“In this… hypothetical world, I think I would’ve kept to myself. I would’ve ignored you and your rivalry, and ignored the others too. Maybe I would’ve gone on a mission that turned my life around, but more likely I would’ve died young in a stupid accident on that bike because that was about all I liked doing back then-“

“Woah woah woah stop! Keith, buddy, what the hell?”

“What?”

“That’s not… you don’t actually think that, right?”

Lance looked horrified, Keith realised. His face was awash with pity and something akin to disgust, or was that devastation?

“It’s… the most probable outcome.”

“The most probable outcome is- _Keeeeith_ ,” Lance whined, dropping his head into his hands.

Keith froze, sitting there uncertain as to what he’d done to wrong. What did it matter if hypothetically without Voltron his life had gone south? It was _hypothetical_.

“New situation,” Lance said, his head shooting up. “We are friends. We become friends at the Garrison, and with friends, you aren’t allowed to recklessly throw away your life on that stupid hover bike. What then?”

_What then?_ He asked it so simply; as if there were any reality that when given the chance, Keith wouldn’t pursue Lance to the ends of the Earth. _What then_ , what happened when in every possible reconstruction of their lives, Keith felt certain he’d fall, and fall and fall and keep falling and keep doing _nothing_ , until it pushed him off the intended path and it cancelled his plans because he was pulled back into orbit again and again, while nothing else had quite enough gravity to tug him free of it. Keith sighed; he was gonna need an answer that pleased Lance, and that certainly wasn’t it.

“Then maybe we’ll go to space together,” he said. “In a more peaceful manner. And when you impulsively marry that girl, I’ll be your best man or something.”

“Nuh uh, Hunk’s best man.”

“Okay, then I’ll be your… ring… bearer?”

“Pidge.”

“Flower girl.”

“Shiro.”

“You _cannot_ make-“

“Uh!” Lance cut him off. “My wedding, my choice.”

“Fine. I’ll officiate it.”

“Coran.”

“What!” Keith squawked. “You’d willing let _Coran_ officiate your wedding? I’m not coming.”

“You have to.”

“But you haven’t left me anyone else to be! You’ve ticked off everyone but the bride so far-”

“And that role is reserved for my lovely impulsively married wife,” Lance snickered.

“Then maybe on the day you’ll realise that you’re marrying impulsively and marry me instead,” Keith said defiantly, crossing his arms and looking smug as if he’d really just won the argument and not- _oh god_.

_Oh god oh god oh god_. His tongue felt numb, his whole being in fact, ice clawing its way up his spine and _oh my god_. Now Lance was looking at him with a hundred more expressions flashing across his face than Keith could handle, and _what had he done?_ Lance was going to hate him, Lance was going to figure it out and _know_ and _hate him_. Why had he said something so stupid, why had he been so obvious, and why- why was Lance laughing?

“That’s even _more_ impulsive,” Lance spluttered, doubled over and _laughing_. “Have mercy Keith, _jesus_.”

And Keith… smiled. Nervously, uncertain, trying to play it off as well as Lance thought he was. That’s what it was, a joke. No harm intended, no harm done. What a goddam relief.

“I like our hypothetical lives,” Lance said when he’d finally calmed down.

Keith shrugged. “I reckon this ones got some potential.”

When Lance looked at him and smiled, it was soft. Softer than he deserved. For a minute, it was the most precious moment Keith had known. Then Lance’s smile morphed into a smirk.

“Yeah, like the potential to beat you to the lake.”

“Wha-“

“Last one in’s cooking dinner!”

And then Lance was up, and running.

“Lance! L- screw you!”

Keith scrabbled to his feet, already a few steps behind the hysterical man sprinting like a child in a game of catch back down the path.

“I’m a bad cook!” Keith yelled.

“Then you better win!”

Keith shook his head, grinning, forgetting his internal conflict for just a while as he sprinted after Lance back towards the lake.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter, thanks for reading everyone! I'm not sure you're gonna like this one but :( I love you all anyway

To say Lance was having a challenging day would be an understatement. It wasn’t challenging in the traditional sense, in the way he thought it might have been- it was challenging because _Keith_ couldn’t seem to stop looking so goddam… _nice_. It started in the morning, when Keith had woken up and sat there at their breakfast table looking like he needed to be wrapped in five or so blankets and held. He’d been cut open and left raw by those nightmares, and though Lance mightn’t have been the sole cause, he certainly hadn’t helped. So he’d ordered Keith breakfast to try and get him to eat, and to do something because not holding him in that moment was actually going to damage Lance otherwise.

Keith had cheered up throughout the day, thank god, and was even smiling by the time they pulled into camp. But that hatched an entirely new problem. Because Keith, his hair tied back into an adorable pony, bare footed with shirt sleeves and pant legs rolled up so he could go pattering around campsite happily while dipping his toes into the lake, was more than Lance could handle. Then he’d come across the truck, stood on tiptoes until giving up and clamouring into the back to search through what they’d brought. It was distracting, and had taken all of Lance’s strength not to haul him out the truck and into the tent he’d just finished setting up to kiss him until Keith had no reason to look unhappy ever again. And that had been… a lot to think about for Lance.

He was not in love with Keith. Keith was his friend, his best bud, even if they hadn’t seen each other for a couple of years. His relationship with Keith was platonic, and those urges, to hold him and kiss him- they were normal. He was attracted to guys! Why shouldn’t he find Keith attractive? He’d thought about kissing Hunk before, and Hunk was his friend. Admittedly he hadn’t thought about tucking Hunk’s hair behind his ears and kissing his eyelids when he first woke up in the morning, but it was all a spectrum, and some friends just felt more kissable than other friends.

Lance was a fucking _idiot_. That’s what he thought to himself as he poked and prodded at the fire after nightfall. The lake had been freezing, and with no definitive winner, he and Keith had shared the cooking duties. Now it was a challenge to warm up. Keith’s hair was still damp from the lake, but he was beaming as he sat before the fire wrapped in a blanket and Lance’s beanie. He had no business looking so soft in that moment, so easy to give in too.

“My favourite Coran moment…” Keith paused, biting his lip as he thought on the answer to Lance’s question.

He had to keep them talking, couldn’t risk a silence where it was just Keith’s eyes on him, looking darker and deeper and wider in the firelight.

“Space mall,” Keith said. “His outfit ideas were so bad that it was… funny, in the end.”

“Hah, funny, unless _you_ were the one who got knocked out trying to make a break for it with Kalternecker.”

Keith winced. “That was a hard hit.”

“I think I still see double some times.”

Keith chuckled, using a stick he’d found to nudge the burning coals.

“When’s the last time you saw Coran?”

“Last time you saw him,” Lance replied. “Man, it’s been forever.”

Keith nodded in agreement.

“I wonder how he’s doing. How he’s…”

A sigh.

“He’ll never stop missing her,” said Lance.

Keith shrunk a little into himself, and Lance was sure he saw guilt there.

“We can talk about her. It’s not like… I mean I like talking about her, sometimes. I like to think what she’s doing, where… where she is.”

“Yeah,” Keith said, clearing his throat. “Yeah, she… she’ll be doing good. That’s Allura.”

“That’s Allura,” Lance agreed. “Saving every universe.”

“What do you think she’d be doing, in that hypothetical world? No Galra, and no Voltron.”

Lance frowned, suddenly not liking any of the answers he came up with.

“Cause- cause I think,” Keith said quickly, perhaps realising his mistake. “That she’d still have found us.”

Lance looked up, and found Keith was looking at him with wide eyes, trying to patch up that sudden frown.

“Some things are just meant to go like that. Like… my mom, landing on Earth. Everything’s a little drawn to Earth, doesn’t it seem like that?”

Lance thought on it for a moment, looked over the desperation on Keith’s face, the hope that he hadn’t upset him.

“Yeah,” he answered. “It kind of does sometimes.”

Keith smiled, and they fell back into silence for a while. It wasn’t uncomfortable, not with the crackle of the fire and the small whisperings of water lapping at the lakes edge. When Lance looked across it, he could see the moonlight spilling down through the slight cloud cover and coating patches of the water silver. The trees beyond that and around them were black as night, and in the glow of the fire, they felt safe.

“Do you still love her?”

The question didn’t come as a surprise, and when Lance turned back to Keith, he found the other man watching him curiously.

“Don’t you?”

“You know I do,” said Keith. “But it was different, for you.”

Lance sighed.

“I’m not in love with her, no. I’d be wasting my life, hanging onto someone who could never love me back.”

A strange sort of look crossed Keith’s face, but Lance elected to ignore it.

“But I love her, like we all do. And I wish… I wish I could talk to her. All the time, Keith, sometimes it’s… sometimes it’s unbearable. I just want to _talk_. She was my friend, for so long, a-and we had a connection. I can live with the fact we didn’t get my fairy-tale ending, I can fall in love again, but she was my friend before anything else and I just want to… if I could just see her, once, and just ask her if she’s happy. I just want to know if she’s happy.”

Keith was looking at him sadly, and Lance almost regretted speaking.

“I bet she wants to know if you’re happy too,” said Keith. “So maybe, if neither of you can know for sure, the best you can do is… work on making yourself happy. And that way… that way what you’re hoping for, for the other, will be true.”

Despite how unsure of himself he looked, Keith finished up his sentence with a soft smile, that look of pity dissipating until Lance felt he was looking at him with something more like belief. And confidence.

“Thanks, Keith,” he mumbled. “I mean it. And thanks for… it’s alright, having you along. I guess you weren’t the worst person to crash my road trip.”

Lance would’ve given the world for that smile, but instead he shook his head, muttered, “but don’t think your contract can’t still be terminated,” and went back to poking the fire.

And if Keith looked a little happier for the rest of the night, well, that wasn’t any of his business.

Getting to sleep was something else entirely. Things were a little easier when they only had to share a room, not cram into Lance’s tiny tent together. He had spare blankets, thank god, and ensured Keith had enough to wrap up in before clambering into his own sleeping bag. It was there, in the pitch dark, with Keith breathing right beside him, that Lance began to feel somewhat nervous.

“Thanks,” Keith whispered, like he feared upsetting the silence. “For taking us out here.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Lance said. “It was a good idea.”

“Yeah,” said Keith. “Night.”

“Goodnight.”

From then on he could only assume Keith shut his eyes. It was too dark to see much, just a lumped shape in the shadows, one that breathed slower and softer by the second, one that shifted onto its side as they drifted into a deep sleep.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Lance whispered.

Keith was truly asleep now, else he would have responded to the quiet curse. He was asleep, which meant it was only Lance left awake to ponder and stress over what would happen if either shifted closer in the night. What if Keith got cold? What if Lance ended up drooling on him? What if he said something stupid in his sleep? So many ways to fuck it up, and Lance couldn’t for the life of him figure out why he was so affected by it. Keith and him had spent many nights together when they were still part of Voltron, holed up in hideouts or waiting out a solar storm in the lion’s cockpit or passed out side by side on the couch in the common room. It was normal, always had been, until now when Keith was inches from him, breathing softly in his sleep and fooling Lance into thinking he wanted to hold him.

Keith was a tough guy, Keith probably had his knife tucked up with him in the blanket right now, Keith did not need to be _held_ while he slept. Yet he looked like he did, buried in blankets and asleep in a tent. Maybe it was the miles of trees, or maybe it was the deep lake lapping a few yards from their camp, or maybe it was the expanse of sky and stars above them- but them, Keith, one human in the midst of all that was endless, felt small. They were children again, hiding from the dark, feeling helpless in the clutches of the universe. It didn’t matter, suddenly, that Lance had seen every dimension of space, had fought countless battles and looked over and into and across that whole universe; in a tent under the stars he felt small again.

They’d watched a sun go supernova once, from a safe distance aboard the castle. They stood on the deck and watched the immeasurable heat billow out, watched it tear through and engulf a plant, the silent roar of destruction but a blip in space, knowing a thousand, a million, an uncountable number of events were occurring concurrently with it. They watched the sun explode and swallow its satellites, the end of things, of all things, apocalyptic. And then they’d turned the castle around, and left, and that sun was nothing more than a slight flicker of momentary light, no more significant than them.

Lance would shudder thinking about it sometimes, his stomach would turn and the cold sweat would return, and the outward burst of fire and destruction would be too much to comprehend. But here, and now, Keith was asleep in his tent, breathing quietly over and over. He was his own little solar system, his own little sun, again he breathed in and again he breathed out, and everything kept orbiting as it was intended too. He was simple, easy to comprehend, unlike that supernova and unlike the universe. He was just Keith, asleep, warm and safe, breathing in, breathing out, breathing in.

-

Keith decided to braid his hair the next morning, and Lance didn’t know if it was something he did often now, or something he was just trying on a whim, but either way he was killing it. On closer inspection, it was probably something he’d done before, judging by the ease with which he did it up in the morning, without the aid of a mirror or anything. Lance tried not to stare as they packed up camp; tried and failed. Keith was at least able to see the humour to it when Lance tripped over the tent cable.

It was only when he was lumping his backpack into the truck that Lance realised he hadn’t drunk anything the night before. Maybe he’d taken a little longer to fall asleep thinking of Keith, but he’d still done it alone. That gave him something good to think on as they pulled away from camp that day.

“Where too, Captain?”

Keith unfurled the paper map once they hit the main road again, grinning at Lance from the passenger seat.

“We go with the wind,” Lance replied, making Keith laugh. “Nah, we’re just sticking to the route today, making some headway.”

“Sounds alright. Does Veronica know we might be seeing her?”

“Nah. We’ve got an agreement, we can crash at each others any time we like. Besides, she might suspect it, since I left home.”

Keith nodded, slowly folding up the map.

“Why, you looking forward to seeing her?”

A shrug.

“Yeah. Veronica’s pretty cool. Your whole family is.”

“Me included?”

“Don’t push it.”

“Keith! I’m offended.”

They drove uneventfully for the most of the day, while Keith only complained about the number of bathroom breaks Lance needed. _That’s the fourth time we’ve stopped! But I need to go! Maybe you shouldn’t have drunk three Gatorades!_ In the end, Lance won, because he was driving so he could do whatever he wanted.

It was nearing late afternoon when Keith began to drift off in the car. It surprised Lance, when he noticed his eyes beginning to droop and his head nodding lower and lower. Keith seemed to be very cautious about when and how he slept, yet here he was drifting off easily in the car, even with the faint chatter of the radio washing over him. Lance did his best not to stare, kept his eyes on the road because he knew that was his duty, he had to keep them safe. They were on the highway now, so the driving was fairly smooth, but he’d still grimace every time they ran over a slight bump, or changed lanes too sharply. When Lance exit the highway, he was sure to take it slow, carefully rounding corners until they were on a flatter stretch of country road. It was only then that the nightmare came.

It started as it had before, small twitches, small mumblings, like Keith was trapped again. His arms had stayed folded while he slept, and now they tightened, eyes shifting restlessly behind his lids. And Lance panicked. He couldn’t sit through this again like he had that night in the motel, couldn’t watch Keith ride out this nightmare only to wake up terrified and upset, to the point he was almost inconsolable. Couldn’t this boy have a few hours rest? It was getting worse now, it was reaching the point of whimpers and flinches and if Lance didn’t wake him now he’d keep suffering but he didn’t know how and he needed to keep his eyes on the road and-

Lance slammed his hand against the car horn, a blaring sound emitting from the truck. He noticed Keith jerk awake beside him, but instead of looking at him he threw his head towards his own window, yelling at the empty stretch of road.

“ _ASSHOLE!_ ”

Keith looked utterly shocked when Lance did turn back to him, heart hammering and back pressed against the seat.

“Sorry Keith, some idiot was in our lane. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Keith looked like he might still be trying to find his tongue, but eventually opened his mouth to speak.

“No, it’s okay,” he croaked. “I… I should have woken up anyway.”

Lance’s knuckles where white where he was gripping the steering wheel, praying Keith wouldn’t turn and notice no one was near them on the empty stretch of road, and that Lance had honked at nothing.

“So, what’cha dreaming about?”

He asked it casually, giving Keith a chance to talk if he wanted, but not pressuring him. At least, that’s what Lance’s intentions had been. Keith did not get the same idea.

“What?” He stammered, voice taking on a new pitch.

 _Oh. Oh no_ , this was not what he’d intended-

“I was dreaming?” Keith said, and his voice sounded hoarse, and terrified.

“No,” Lance said quickly. “No, I mean, I don’t know. You were asleep. Were… were you dreaming? I don’t know.”

Keith stared at him, eyes searching, searching for a crack in the lie. He let go a shuddery breath, one he tried to conceal in his sleeve but failed to do. Lance’s heart sunk.

“Looks like there’s a storm on the way,” he said, changing the subject.

Keith said nothing, curling away from him so his nose was almost pressed to the cold glass.

“I’ll try get us there before it hits.”

They didn’t make it before the storm. The rest of the drive was quiet and a little awkward, with Keith keeping to himself and Lance desperately trying to think of things to get him to open up. The rain hit in the early evening, around the same time they pulled into an oldish hotel in a fair-sized country town. It was somewhat nicer than the places they’d stayed before, painted cream with a little patio surrounded the building, and a bar-restaurant downstairs. Lance urged them out of the room as soon as they were settled, determined not to let Keith slip into a worse mood. So it was in the bar they sat.

A couple were having dinner down the other end, but mostly the place was quiet. Lance and Keith found themselves at a booth near the window, where they could watch the rain trickle down the glass and hear the wind tease the trees outside. Keith was still fairly quiet, but after a cup of hot chocolate and a few easy jabs from Lance, he was back to vocalising things.

“And the winner is… me. Again.”

Lance smirked as he drew all the cards in towards him, secretly delighted at the small scoff that left Keith’s lips.

“How’s losing feel, Kogane?”

“Oh you’ll lose,” Keith quipped back, even if it lacked some of its usual energy.

“We’ll see,” said Lance, already beginning to reshuffle the cards.

He watched Keith out of the corner of his eye as he did so, his small mannerisms, the way his eyes kept dropping to the ground, and then his… the way his fingers kept fiddling with something around his neck. Was that a necklace? Lance hadn’t seen it before. Or maybe he’d noticed it and just not given it much attention. He was paying attention now though, when it seemed to be occupying so much of Keith’s own. It was hard to see tucked under his collar, but every now and then Keith’s finger would loop under it, and the fine metal chain would come into view. It was a simple thing, probably hard to break if it had lasted this long around the neck of one as lively as Keith. It was long enough to disappear down into his shirt, and Lance really, really wanted to know if there was something at the end of that chain.

“Man the best man win,” he joked, or tried, pushing Keith’s cards towards him.

And so the game began. At least it tried too. Keith was clearly distracted, his moves were bad and he constantly needed prompting from Lance, as if his mind were a millions miles away. It could have been the nightmares, in fact it was almost certainly the nightmares, and that’s what Lance should have settled on. Instead, he watched Keith run his finger distractedly along that chain over and over again, and suddenly he had something else to blame.

“What’cha got there?” He asked, when Keith failed to notice it was his turn for about the fifth time.

“Hm?”

Cloudy eyes looked up into his own, Keith slow to awaken to the situation.

“Your necklace,” Lance repeated. “That’s new, right?”

He didn’t mean to sound so desperate, to be itching with unquenchable curiosity, and suspicion. Keith followed his gaze, down to where his finger was currently curled around the chain.

“Oh,” he said.

And he pulled it out from under his shirt.

“My ring.”

And Lance stared. And stared and stared and stared.

“Your engagement ring?” He asked.

“Yeah,” said Keith.

For a while, time stood still. Keith was so distracted with his thoughts and his ring that Lance felt as if he had all the time in the world to think up a response. One that made sense, one that was logical, and polite; one a friend would give.

“I thought you broke up.”

All the time in the world, and it wouldn’t be enough.

“We did.”

“Then why’d you… keep the ring?”

Keith was coming back into focus now, dropping his finger from the chain and looking at Lance properly. Did he look embarrassed?

“Well I… I…”

He paused. Lance could feel every breathe he took, every movement he made, like they were things that risked betraying him. _Act causal, too casual_ , he shouldn’t care but he did. A deep sigh from Keith, and Lance felt all his muscles seizing up.

“I kept it cause… cause its not impossible that I’ll, uh, go back. One day. To him.”

Lance’s mind was one tracked now, and the cards and the hotel and the rain, he couldn’t focus on it. There was a singular line, a track on which the train raced around and around, picking up speed in his head until he was sure he could feel the wheels grating against the inside of his skull.

“What?” He said eloquently.

Then, before Keith could speak-

“You _kept_ the ring? You… broke up with your fiancé and kept the ring?”

“Yeah,” Keith said, narrowing his eyes.

“Why?”

“I just told you-“

“That you might go back to him, that’s-“

 _Crazy_. It was insane, and Lance’s brain couldn’t handle it. He refused to focus on _why_ , on what exactly about Keith keeping the ring given to him but a man he’d nearly married drove him so wild, he just focused on the _what_. Lance was staring, mouth agape. Keith was… still considering getting married?

“Did you… why’d you break up?”

A shrug, though Keith looked confused. “We weren’t right.”

“But you kept the ring.”

“Yeah. Lance, is there-“

“You’d still go back and marry him? When? Why’d you leave if-“

“Because it wasn’t right,” Keith repeated, louder.

Confusion was turning to suspicion, was turning to annoyance. But Lance didn’t care, and Lance couldn’t stop.

“If he wasn’t right,” he said, slower, almost softer. “Then why would you go back?”

Keith was staring at him as if he’d lost his mind, which was ridiculous, frankly, because _Lance_ wasn’t the one considering running back to an ex who he’d _admitted_ wasn’t right. Keith opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. And suddenly he looked a whole lot less confident. His shoulders slumped, and the air of annoyance fell, and the frown dissolved into a sigh and he just… melted.

“Why should things be perfect?” Keith asked. “How do I know I’ll ever be right for the person who’s right for me?”

Another sigh, and he drew in his lip to bite on.

“Things are still good without being perfect,” Keith said, quiet. “I could settle for that.”

Lance couldn’t speak, was frozen in his seat. The train that had been going around and around derailed, was left lying on its side, wheels still spinning with nowhere to take the vessel.

“I think I need some… fresh air,” Keith stammered, standing abruptly.

Lance was too stunned to stop him, in awe as Keith stood and grabbed his jacket, not even pausing for a wave before he was taking off towards the door. The bar was still empty, and it was still raining, and Keith’s cards lay on the table mid play. Lance drew a very deep breathe, before slowly setting down his own cards. He hadn’t even realised he’d still been clutching them, and now the deck was bent.

“What the hell,” he breathed.

It was a lot to think about, and even more, was the reaction he’d had. Why did he _care?_ What did it matter? Keith wasn’t his and he didn’t want Keith to _be_ his. Did he?

A buzzing from the table startled Lance, and he looked down to see that in his haste, Keith had left his communications device on the table. There was a message dancing around the screen, pending. Lance stared at it, and he shouldn’t, he shouldn’t, he _should not_ -

It was from Krolia. The phone was cold in Lance’s hand, and Krolia was the one who’d sent the message.

_Son. I am sending thoughts that you are well on Earth. Kolivan is still covering for the incident, but you need not worry. Recover yourself, and don’t dwell on what happened. I…_

The rest of the message disappeared into an ellipses, waiting for the device to be unlocked. Lance was shaking. The incident? What incident? Had Keith done something-

“Hello?”

He dropped the phone. Fearing he’d been caught, Lance felt relief flood through him when he realised it wasn’t Keith standing at his table, but some woman he’d never seen. He blinked, confused, and still a little shaken.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Oh. No, no it’s okay.”

“Yeah? Still, sorry, I’m Elizabeth.”

She held out a hand, and cautiously Lance shook it.

“Lance.”

“Lance? Hey. Anyway, sorry for bothering you, but I’m bored out of my mind and you’ve got cards…”

“Oh.”

Lance looked between Elizabeth and the cards splayed across their table. He would’ve preferred to play with Keith, but given he was currently sitting here alone, also bored out his mind…

“You wanna play?”

“Yes please,” Elizabeth said, clearly embarrassed to be asking.

“Cool! Well, take a seat, my friends gone for a walk.”

“We’ve both been ditched,” Elizabeth scoffed as she took a seat across from him. “My girlfriend’s sick and sleeping, and if I have to spend one more second reading I’m gonna be ill too.”

Lance cracked a smile, and began reshuffling the cards.

“Yeah? What’re you two doing out here?”

Elizabeth was a med-student, who Lance discovered was travelling home for the holidays with her girlfriend. They didn’t have such a long way to go, but due to car troubles they’d been stuck for three days in town. She was friendly enough, and, no offence to Keith, way better at cards than he was. Even more, she was a good distraction from his darker thoughts. It didn’t take them long to get talking properly, and before long Lance found he was actually enjoying himself. It was then, of course, that Keith remerged.

He dragged himself through the door looking largely like a drowned cat, squeezing water out’ve his hair and shrugging off his sodden jacket. For a second, when his eyes found Lance, he looked calmer. Then they settled on Elizabeth, and Keith’s expression soured. Lance was pretty pre-occupied laughing at a joke Elizabeth had made about the game when Keith stomped over to their table.

“Hey, Keith, this is-“

Keith snatched his phone off the table, casting Lance a dirty look before turning heel and disappearing in the direction of their room. Lance stared after him, stunned, Elizabeth doing the same.

“Uh… sorry,” he said, when Keith ducked around the corner. “He’s not… usually so grumpy. I better…”

Lance jerked his thumb in the direction Keith had gone in.

“Oh! Yeah, no that’s fine. You should probably go,” Elizabeth whispered, peering after the moody man. “It was nice meeting you.”

“Yeah! You too, you guys drive safe.”

“Thanks.”

Elizabeth waved him off as Lance rose from the table, collecting his few belongings and smiling politely. His smile faded fast once he was out of the bar and after Keith, however. The shower was running when he reached their room, and Lance struggled to make himself busy. Why did Keith always have to be like this? So he’d made a new friend, big deal, it was only cause Keith had ditched him in the first place. What had he expected Lance to do? Mope around and cry until he returned? Wasn’t as if Keith liked to be followed.

When he emerged minutes later already in his sleep clothes, Lance himself was irritable. Keith shot him a glare before moving to put his stuff away, and Lance was _not_ in the mood to put up with this.

“What?” He demanded tersely.

“What?” Keith repeated.

Lance scowled. “What’s with you man? That was really rude.”

“What was?” Keith said, feigning ignorance.

“Back there,” Lance said. “I was trying to introduce you.”

“To your new friend?” Keith asked, an edge to his voice. “No thanks.”

“Okay, I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” Lance snapped. “But there’s no reason to be a dick.”

“Really, Lance?”

“Uh, yeah?”

Because… there really wasn’t any reason. Keith huffed, turning away from him.

“Did something happen?” Lance asked.

“No.”

“Then why are you like this?”

“Like what?”

“Why are you being such a dick,” Lance exclaimed. “Elizabeth was just-“

“So that’s her name.”

“Yes? Are you… jealous?”

Keith whipped around, fire in his eyes. “ _What?_ ”

“I’m allowed to make other friends, especially if you’ve just ditched-“

“I’m not jealous,” Keith hissed.

“No? Then what was it, the nightmare-“

“The _what?_ ”

Lance realised his mistake, but honestly… Keith kind of invited this one in.

“Just be honest man, is that why you’re treating me like this?”

Keith face was red, and Lance suspected it was more from embarrassment than anger.

“I’m not treating you like anything,” Keith snapped. “You’re just- you’re just being you. Okay? With your stupid… flirting. Just leave me alone.”

“My flirting? Oh my god, are you serious?”

Keith said nothing, spying the message on his phone and tossing it aside angrily. Because he was about to be ignored, and because Lance was already high strung, he couldn’t really help the next thing out of his mouth.

“What was the incident?”

Keith stopped, and froze. And Lance wasn’t going to be ignored anymore.

“Excuse me?”

Now it was Lance’s turn to stay silent. He met Keith’s levelled glare, refusing to back down or flinch.

“Mind your own _fucking_ business, Lance.”

“Yeah? Then mind yours.”

“I am.”

“That why you got so pissed seeing me talking to a girl?”

Keith scoffed.

“As if I’d care-“

“Then how about when you look at me, before I go to sleep?”

“What? When you _drink_ ,” Keith snarled. “As if you think that’s not a problem.”

“No,” said Lance. “I don’t think it’s a problem. Cause at least I _sleep_.”

“That’s not helping you,” Keith said.

“What would you know-“

“I know enough to know that’s bad! You drink yourself to sleep, Lance! Really, is that what its come to?”

“Oh, cause you’re _so_ much better,” Lance drawled, fire burning in his chest.

“Yeah!” Keith insisted. “And I think you should stop!”

“So I can do what? Cry myself to sleep like you?”

Keith’s mouth was open, another insult on the tip of his tongue. Lance’s words were sinking in, and the realisation was occurring, and Keith’s lips were beginning to tremble. He was angry, so angry, and suddenly it had all been ripped away from him.

“What?” he croaked.

“You heard me,” Lance said, because he was hurt, Keith _hurt_. “At least I _sleep_.”

“You’re miserable,” said Keith, and it was spoken softly, harshly, like he pitied him.

“Me?” Lance almost shouted. “Look at you! You’re thinking of running back to a fiancé who you don’t even love-“

“You’re lonely, Lance! You don’t even know what the hell you’re doing out here!”

“That didn’t stop you from wanting to join me. What did you think you’d get from this, Keith? We’re barely friends anymore-“

“You’re the one who _let_ me stay-“

“But why did you come!” Lance yelled. “Why? Our relationship has _no where_ left to go, Keith. We tried enemies, and we tried friends. We might as well sleep together since that’s the only thing left going for us before we admit this was a stupid idea from the start!”

Lance stopped, realising what he’d said, what he’d _yelled_. Keith was frozen where he stood, a slight sheen in his eyes and paling fast. It felt like sinking, watching those words settle between them, watching them latch onto Keith and drag him down, down, until it was only Lance above the waves. He let him sink. Keith was his friend and he’d let him, he’d said-

“I’m sorry,” said Lance.

Keith grabbed his backpack, and shoved his feet into his boots.

“I’m sorry,” Lance repeated, firmer, even if he was losing himself by the second.

Keith looked at him one last time, face awash with anger and hurt. Then he was shouldering his bag, and slamming the door shut behind him. In their empty room, the silence rung out. Lance let himself sit, frozen in shock at the end of the bed. He half expected Keith to come back through the door, but deep down he knew he couldn’t.

“What did you do?”

He was staring at his hands, voice a terrified whisper, worrying away in his throat until forcing itself out.

“Oh my god, what did you do, what did you do?”

He was shaking a little, didn’t know why. What Keith had said was wrong, but what'd he'd said was wrong too. Is this really what is was now? Was this what war had done to them? He wanted them to be friends and he wanted them to be kind, like in his perfect, hypothetical world. Would it be too much to ask, for reality to be kinder? He was sorry, a thousand times over he was sorry and he was hurt. Lance felt like crying, like curling up in a ball and hiding from the world. Keith was right, he was lonely. He was lonely, and lost, they both were. And they'd blown it, both of them, to pieces.

“I’m sorry,” Lance repeated.

It was quite in here, empty, and Keith wasn’t coming back.

“I’m sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry sorry sorry things will get better, but only in like a month because I won't be able to update until then... thank you for reading though <3
> 
> (also sorry if lance feels a bit harsh this chapter, not really what I was going for, and hopefully it will read better with keith's pov next chapter)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time no update, but thanks for being patient everyone! And thank you BIG TIME for the kudos and comments, y'all are so lovely <3
> 
> And listen I know daya's 'new' may be a song for basic bitches but like... so be it because if you think I didn't listen to it on repeat writing this then you are absolutely Wrong and I will retain the right to play it as many times as it takes me to write a chapter
> 
> thank you so so so much for reading!

Keith had fucked up. Royally. He hadn’t really known what his plan was after he’d stormed out the room, only that he needed to get away, from Lance and from that stifling reminder of his past. So he’d come here, to the truck, which was easy enough to break into so he had a remotely warm place to spend the night. It wasn’t comfortable, and it wasn’t ideal, and it was made worse by the fact the whole car smelt vaguely of Lance, but it would do. It was there he sat with a scowl on his face and his arms folded tightly, like he used to do when Lance annoyed him, when he went to sulk, except this time it was accompanied by a rapid beating in his ribcage and a solid lump in his throat. _You’re upset_ , his mind supplied. Of course he was, he’d _started_ that argument with the _intention_ of upsetting someone. He’d gotten exactly what he’d wanted, right?

Keith sighed, setting his chin on his knees as he started dismally out the window. Lance was probably still in their room, feeling equally as miserable, and it was Keith’s fault. Like a child, like the stupid boy he’d been back in the Garrison, he’d prodded the beast because he didn’t know how else to handle his emotions, and he’d hurt both of them in the process. It was just… Keith really didn’t know how to handle things. The ring around his neck felt cold as he tried to ignore it, thinking and overthinking everything Lance had said. Because he was right, in a way. What the hell _was_ Keith doing, going back to a man who wasn’t the one? He would have laughed at himself, if it weren’t for the fact the actual _one_ resided no more than a hundred metres away, probably still awake and probably deeply hurt by the mess Keith had made. _Fuck_.

There’d been no justifiable reason for Keith to kick up such a fuss seeing Lance talking to Elizabeth. He knew Lance had matured, knew he didn’t just flirt aimlessly with people, knew he was simply friendly and charming and that meeting people served no other purpose than making him happy. Even if he had been flirting, it wasn't in his right to care. It was so stupid of Keith to interfere, so unnecessary. That was the Keith of the past, it shouldn’t be the Keith of today. Because Keith now knew better, Keith now had family and friends, he took responsibility for his actions and he controlled his temper and he acted like a _decent goddam person_.

Although there was no doubt it was both of their faults, Keith had started it and hadn’t raised a finger to shut it down once it all started to spiral out of control. They may not have spoken in years, but he knew Lance, at least the older parts of him, how to rile him up, how to get him angry, how to get him to _snap_. He had no right to be surprised, but that snap hit harder every time it replayed in his head. _Our relationship has no where left to go_. Was that really how Lance saw it? Keith hadn’t been hopeful, per say, but he’d been… something. He was clinging to an impossible chance, refusing to let himself be dissuaded, to move on. Time was supposed to heal things, wasn’t it? Time was meant to let you forget, to let you move on so why the hell couldn’t he just _move on_. It was clear Lance had. He’d said so- all they were to each other now was, what, a one night stand because that was about all they had to offer now? They’d run of out of options, had they? Conversations were too stiff now, comfort felt too tinged with pity, and love… love was out of the question. Lance didn’t _love_ him, Lance barely liked him. It didn’t matter if that thought made Keith cry, because it wouldn’t change anything. 

Maybe Keith wasn’t meant to move on; maybe, sometimes, you just had to live with being unhappy. That only set him off more, until he was one lonely idiot crying in the car because the man he loved more than anything, more than sensibility and practicality and the whole six years he’d spent without his constant presence, was never going to return that love. Some thing’s were meant to hurt forever, Keith supposed. You could be happy around them, weave your way through those obstacles even if you tripped up on them every once in a while. They didn’t sit well, they didn’t feel right; the mere possibility of them felt lonely, knowing they were lost. But that’s how it had to be, sometimes. And he could live with that.

-

Keith’s original intention had been to wake up before Lance. Actually, he doubted he’d sleep, but something about finding Lance’s sleeping bag and curling up in it had meant he’d drifted off sometime in the early morning. Consequently, when the rapping against the window woke him a couple of hours later, it came as a bit of a shock.

Keith’s eyes shot open, and he groaned upon realising how stiff and cold his limbs felt. All that was quickly forgotten in favour of staring through the window at the person who’d woken him up. Namely, Lance. _Shit_.

Lance’s eyes were red. Like, _red_ red. So red Keith thought he’d be pretty upset if he noticed or was told. He looked exhausted, dishevelled, and sleepless. And a little confused. Frowning, Keith cracked open the car door, flinching at the rush of cold air, then meeting Lance’s gaze with a cool glare that was proving quite challenging to maintain.

“What?”

“You’re still here?”

Oh god, Lance’s voice sounded _terrible_. All hoarse and croaky, aptly matching the man’s otherwise awful appearance this morning. And because Keith’s hadn’t _meant_ to still be there in the morning, and because he was still embarrassed about it, he lied.

“You can drop me off in the next town.”

It took Lance a long while to process; maybe it was the sleep deprivation, or just the confusion, but he stared at Keith with the most pained look of guilt and remorse for a good number of seconds before jerking slightly, and finally answering.

“Okay,” he said.

He shut Keith’s door mechanically, like his mind was somewhere else and he was simply acting out of instinct. His bag went in the back, then his own door was opening. Lance sat very still listening to the old engine rattle, patiently waiting for the car to heat up. Keith couldn’t help glancing at him out of the corner of his eye, too afraid to let this façade slip, to let Lance see how terrified he was. They hated each other, they were angry at each other, that was all. Lance’s eyes weren’t bloodshot and his face hadn’t paled, Keith’s lip wasn’t trembling and he did not feel light to the head. They were not upset, they were angry, and they had nothing left to give each other.

Just like Lance had said.

The drive was hell. Lance would gaze hopefully at every town they passed, but ultimately decided each was too small a place for him to drop Keith at. It was only a matter of time though, they couldn’t keep up this game forever. They let the radio play, not loud enough to really listen to it, but enough so the silence wasn’t suffocating. Keith strained his neck looking stubbornly out the window, refusing to look at Lance now that they were driving. The one or two glances he did steal gave him little hope; Lance looked exhausted, and sick to the stomach. He didn’t dare speak, just stared ahead at the road with dark eyes and a miserable slump to his shoulders. It was that Lance specific type of anguish, the one he didn’t like people seeing, but couldn’t help. Keith had seen it on the days Lance was most homesick, or at the end of a battle that ended with too many dead. He saw it the day Shiro went missing, and the day Keith himself left for the Blade again. The last time he saw it was two days after they lost Allura. Lance found a quiet part of the ship, and sat down, and hunched his shoulders, and let his spirit simply drain. Keith had seen him, but hadn’t gone to him. He wondered if things would be different now, if he’d just said a word.

The only town Lance deemed appropriate to leave Keith in turned out to be a city. By that point no one could deny it any longer, and in the midst of midday traffic, and skyscrapers, and pedestrians, Lance found a single parking spot along a crowded road, and stopped the car. It was sunny today, not exactly warm, but pleasant. Lance looked like a ghost where he sat in the drivers seat.

“Will this do,” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Keith.

Then, because he was a coward, and because Lance would be a lot better off once he was gone, Keith grabbed his pack, opened the door, and left. He saw Lance flinch as he shut the door, even though the man’s eyes remained fixed ahead as he white-knuckled the steering wheel. Keith stood on the curb, heart racing in his chest and feet itching to turn back and run for the car. He refused to look when the engine started back up, refused even a glance as Lance waited for a car to pass before pulling back out into the traffic. He waited until the roar of that old truck was entirely out of earshot before turning, and slumping.

Why was it so goddam sunny today? Didn’t the world know Keith should be allowed to mope? He felt awful, short of sleep and guilty as hell, and worst of all, lost. Not in the physical sense, but within, every cell in his body was screaming that he was out of place, hopeless and abandoned and without. What was he doing out here? Fuck whatever had happened in space, he should have sucked it up like he always had before, forgotten Earth and forgotten Lance, because they could never end well. It didn’t matter what his heart was longing for, because Keith didn’t get what he wanted, he never had.

_Selfish_ , said a voice. _Stuck up. Ungrateful_. He’d gotten his mother back, he’d survived the war, he’d gotten Shiro back more than once. He couldn’t force Lance to love him, no matter how badly Keith wanted it. He knew this, all of it; it didn’t stop him feeling miserable. Keith didn’t make it far from the roadside, he only travelled a few steps really, to a bench on the shaded sidewalk where he sat with his head in his hands. Then a phone in his hands. It was a bad idea, a poor choice all round, but Keith was a weak, weak man, with not enough strength to handle a broken heart.

“Hello?”

She picked up on the ninth ring, seconds before Keith overthought his idea and hung up. Her voice was a little unsure, but curious, and the similarity of the accent he heard to Lance’s made him tear up.

“Hi Rachel,” said Keith, and sniffled. “It’s Keith.”

“Oh.”

There was a lengthy pause.

“Hey… Keith. How… are you? Are you still with Lance? I haven’t really heard from you guys…”

Did that lump in his throat need to be so persistent? Did he really need to feel this close to crying?

“I’m in love with your brother,” said Keith.

“What?” Said Rachel.

“I really love him,” said Keith.

“What the hell,” said Rachel. “ _Lance?_ ”

“Yeah.”

Another sniffle.

“Keith,” Rachel asked cautiously. “Where are you?”

_Sniff_.

“Atlanta.”

There was a very deep sigh from the other end of the line.

“Oh my god are you two actually driving across the country?”

“We were.”

_Sniff sniff sniff._

“Were?” Rachel sounded suspicious. “Has something happened-“

“I just told you I’m in love with your brother,” Keith mumbled. “Aren’t you gonna… say something?”

Keith could envision Rachel raising both brows at that, the way Lance sometimes did.

“What… do you want me to say?”

“He hates me.”

“Keith. Keith, are you crying?”

“No,” Keith whined, ducking his head into his hands. “No I’m not I’m… ugh, I feel sick.”

“Are you alright?”

Rachel sounded quite concerned now.

“I’m fine,” Keith mumbled. “Except that I love your brother, but we had a fight, and now we’ve split up and he hates me.”

“Okay,” said Rachel. “Okay… you’re in love with Lance.”

Another sniffle, one that had Keith wiping angrily at his nose with his sleeve.

“I don’t know what to do. Rachel what… what do I do?”

“Dude, I have… like literally no idea. Why are you telling me this?”

“I don’t know,” Keith whined. “You’re related.”

“Do you have siblings?”

“No.”

“I see. Keith, we’ve spoken like, once. I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I love him,” said Keith. “I was engaged, y’know? I was going to marry this other guy and I broke it off because I… I was still in love with Lance.”

There was a pause, then-

“Wait.”

Keith waited.

“This isn’t new?”

Keith sighed deeply, actually starting to feel a little nauseous.

“I’ve loved him for like, _years_.”

“Years,” Rachel echoed. “Um. O…kay. You… seriously broke up with your fiancé- Keith, are you alright?”

“I don’t know,” Keith whispered. “I don’t know. I thought stuff like this was supposed to go away. That’s what everyone says, it hurts you for a while and then you move on. Time fixes it, or you fall in love with someone new and that fixes it. And I’ve tried that, I-I’ve tried everything. New planets, new places, I put as much distance as I can between us and… I found new people. I fell in love with someone new but I don’t… I don’t _want_ new. I want Lance.”

For a while, the line was silent, and Keith was too upset to even care if Rachel had hung up.

“Yikes,” she whispered, eventually.

“Not really the advice I’m looking for,” said Keith.

‘Not really the call I was expecting.”

“Sorry.”

Rachel sighed, and Keith heard some rattling on the other end of the line, as though she’d finally given up on whatever she’d been doing to sit down.

“So you’re like, deeply in love with him.”

“Yeah,” said Keith, and tried not to sniffle again.

“You’ve been in love with him for years.”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus, dude.”

_Sniff_.

“So what… happened?”

This time Keith had to bring his sleeve to his traitorous eyes.

“We had a fight. C-cause I took out my frustration on him, it was bad. And stupid. Rachel I messed everything up.”

“Didn’t you guys fight all the time?”

“Yeah but, this was worse. A lot.”

“Okay. You can… still apologise though. Right?”

Keith shook his head unconsciously, feeling miserable.

“He left me here, I don’t know where he’s gone.”

He heard Rachel stifle her sigh.

“Okay,” she said. “You found him once, you can do it again.”

“He hates me,” said Keith. “And I… I love him so much. And I’ve tried and tried, I keeping trying, but it won’t… it’s just not-“

“Have you told him you love him?” Rachel asked suddenly.

Keith frowned.

“No.”

Because of course not. No. No way. What was he, crazy? No he hadn’t told Lance.

“Then have you really tried?” Rachel asked.

And Keith…

Was stumped.

“Have I…” His mouth opened, a puzzled expression crossing his face.

Rachel made a stifled sound.

“Keith,” she said. “I have to go. But I think you should speak to Lance. Okay? Think about it?”

“I…”

“Cool. Well, good chatting. Good luck being in love with my brother and uh… take care.”

“Have I?” Keith whispered.

“Bye!”

Rachel hung up.

“Have I really tried?” Keith whispered, hunched over on the bench around the phone like a dragon guarding its gold.

_Godammit_. The traffic lights changed colour and a fresh wave of cars raced past, this city paying no regard to the small crisis Keith was having on the street. He would’ve thought participating in an intergalactic war spanning literal centuries would have been the hardest thing he’d have to do in his life, but things just loved to prove Keith wrong, didn’t they?

“Dammit,” he said, and stood up.

A lady walking her dog shot Keith a funny look as he shoved his phone into his pocket, only to growl a second later and pull it back out.

“Dammit dammit dammit,” he muttered, scrolling through his contacts to find another familiar name.

Keith Kogane, calling upon multiple people for help? Somewhere in his past there was a ten year old orphan laughing in disbelief.

“You don’t usually call me this much,” said Pidge, the second she picked up the phone.

“I need you to track Lance’s number again.”

“You don’t usually worry this much about Lance either.”

A pause.

“Nah, actually, you do.”

“Pidge, can you-“ Keith sucked in a sharp breath, fisting his hair in frustration.

“Yeah, I’m on it,” the woman drawled. “Not like I have better things to be doing, like discovering the secrets of Altea’s technical history, or tracking down this portion of the galaxies most notorious scaltrite bandits. No, no, you know me, always free. I don’t even need a hello, not like I’m the only human out here or anything. Did you know last week an alien from the planet Xorlax vomited on me because _that’s_ how they display gratitude there? I was so delighted, truly, couldn’t stop smiling, but it definitely wasn’t because Coran said I’d be executed for not graciously accepting the act-”

“Pidge, can you please-“

“Yes, yeah, can you stop panicking for like two seconds Keith? Can’t you hear me typing?”

Keith sighed, but he could in fact hear her fingers flying across whatever device lay before her.

“Why’d you need to track Lance’s phone anyway?” Pidge asked. “Where the hell have you guys even been?”

“Uh,” said Keith, suddenly taking an inordinate amount of interest in the family with four small children trying to cross the road. “Can I tell you later?”

“Yeah man, whatever. I have his location, by the way, I’ll send it through now.”

Keith let go a sigh of relief.

“Thank you Pidge, thank you so much-“

“Don’t worry about it. Just promise you’ll call soon about something other than stalking Lance.”

“I have to go,” Keith said, clearing his throat.

“Of course you do. Take care Keith, I’m serious.”

“Mhm. Thanks Pidge. Bye.”

“Bye you weirdo. And Keith? Try not to lose him again this time.”

Pidge likely didn’t realise how hard her words hit, because Keith just nodded numbly as she hung up, clutching his phone and listening to the silence. He jumped when it buzzed with a text, Lance’s co-ordinates flashing up on the screen. He stared at them for a while, a million thoughts racing through his head. _Have you really tried?_ Keith grabbed hold of the chain around his neck, giving one harsh tug so the thing snapped and came free. Without a look at it, he shoved the whole thing into his pocket, ring and all, and set off in the direction his phone was pointing.

-

Lance was at the park. Hanging around the lake by the looks of it, probably freezing his ass off since it had taken Keith an hour to get across the city and the clouds had drawn over. Keith had refused to take a taxi, or even the subway; a walk was needed to clear his head, and to allow him to figure out what the hell he was going to say. Who apologised first? Would Lance even apologise? There was always the chance he’d want nothing to do with Keith, and would blow him off. That was a very likely possibility actually.

Still, Keith had committed to it now, and he would stay committed, even when he spotted Lance’s form huddled over on a park bench, the only one out here. Again, it was the shoulders that gave him away; had Keith really spent that much time staring at them? Lance looked miserable from his posture alone, and was staring out at the chilly pond with his shoulders up around his ears and a stormy expression on his face. Keith took this all in before the man spotted him, hanging back a few feet and shuffling about anxiously. Lance wasn’t going to be happy, Lance was going to curse him out, yell at him to leave. He’d fucked up big time this time; Keith wasn’t sure there was any coming back, despite how badly he wanted the others attention. If Lance was going to be happier off not knowing him, then that’s the way it should be. Keith had no right to stick around if he was always dragging the other down, if they were dragging each other down, healthy relationships, friendships or more, they weren’t meant to go like that they-

He’d stepped forward unthinkingly, and scuffed his boot along the concrete. It wasn’t a small sound but it was a sound, and Lance was trained as he was to hear those things, because now the man was looking at him. Keith froze up, lip between his teeth, _regretting, regretting, regretting_. Lance froze too, and he looked younger like this. The cold drained him a little, left him looking more vulnerable on the park bench than Keith cared to admit. Was it the wind, or his anxious hands, that had left his hair all mused? The wind or tears that had left his eyes looking red and raw? Lance’s hands were clasped together over his knees, like he’d been staring pensively at the pond all hunched over like that. Now though, he was staring at Keith, whose tongue felt numb and whose presence there felt stupid and unwanted.

“Hey,” he said, for the sake of saying something.

Lance stared back at him, stunned.

“I… I’m sorry,” Keith stammered. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come back, I-“

He gestured awkwardly behind him, then began to turn, to walk away and erase this stupid idea from his memory. But Lance stood up, hastily, almost tipping forward on his feet he was so fast. His hands were in his pockets, and he looked on the verge of saying something, but he didn’t. He’d just… stopped them, both.

“Lance,” said Keith.

It didn’t matter what he was going to say next, because now Lance’s face was screwing up, and his shoulder’s were sagging instead of drawing up with tension, and – _what?_

“I’m so sorry,” Lance said, sounding so _upset_.

Keith had only seen Lance cry on rare, rare occasions. It seemed as if this was going to be one of them.

“I’m really sorry Keith,” he slurred. “I didn’t… I-I shouldn’t have said that.”

He ducked his head, sniffling into his collar as Keith stood there frozen.

“I really shouldn’t have said that.”

“It…” What the hell was Keith supposed to say? “It’s okay.”

Lance’s head shot up, determination burning in tearful eyes. “No it’s not. I didn’t-“

He took a shuddering breath, trying to control himself.

“What I said, about everything, and your life- I shouldn’t have pried and then I shouldn’t… h-have brushed our friendship off like that. Keith, _Keith_ I’m so sorry. I’m just… I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Lance met his eye, wiping away the wetness of his cheeks so he could address Keith properly.

“It’s not an excuse,” he said. “I’m so scared, and… and frustrated. And I took it out on you. I shouldn’t have, I shouldn’t have but I did. Keith… Keith, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

They were both trembling a little, though it remained to been seen whether it was from the cold or emotion.

“I came to say sorry,” Keith said dumbly. “Because I started that fight on purpose because I was confused. About what I was doing, and you got caught in the middle, of me trying to figure out why I am where I am. Lance… _I’m_ sorry.”

Lance frowned, eyes still watering pathetically as he stared at Keith. He raised a cold bitten finger, pointing it accusingly.

“You have to accept my apology before you can apologise,” he mumbled.

“What? No I don’t.”

“You do,” said Lance.

Then sniffled.

“Unless you don’t accept it. You don’t have to accept it-“

“I accept it! But… but _I’m_ sorry.”

This was ridiculous, and it was only starting to get colder out here. Lance didn’t look close to satisfied however.

“I’m really sorry,” he repeated, and another wave of tears came trickling down his cheeks.

“Lance-“

“I just wasn’t ready for anything,” Lance blurted.

Keith shut his mouth, sensing there was more to be said.

“You know in… in the Garrison, that’s the last time my life felt on track. It wasn’t even… I was a _dumb kid_ , who picked fights with you and cared so much about… meaningless stuff. But I should have been allowed that.”

Lance sniffled, hiding his face in his arm for a moment.

“Y’know with Voltron I… I worked really hard to keep us together. I missed Earth so much, but if there was one thing about being in space that was okay it was you guys. The whole team, when we got to goof off, or even when we had to do serious stuff together. You were… you were so good for me then, Keith. You were _so good_ for me, and I never told you. I know we bickered and stuff, but you understood. You had my back man, you just… have always had this dumb way of making people feel better. You’re so oblivious sometimes that it makes you blunt and god that’s what I needed. No nonsense Keith Kogane, who didn’t bother fucking around with jokes when you thought my ideas were actually good.”

Lance drew a deep breath, all the while Keith felt the air had been stolen from his lungs. Should he be hearing this? Was Lance really telling him this?

“Voltron was good, man,” Lance said. “It was good.”

At least he’d stopped crying. Sort of.

“The reason for it, the getting dragged into space, no that wasn’t good, but the rest… you understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”

Lance looked like he was pleading. _Don’t you?_

“Yeah,” Keith answered, honest. “I do.”

Because he did. Because Voltron became their family. They spent so long out there, so long, and to think Keith hated every minute was… It was what the World tried to convince him of, sometimes. They liked to play up the stories, to paint their hero’s just the way they liked. So much of it was that way, so much of it was hell, but other parts… Now Keith felt choked up. Talking to Lance in the common room, identifying new plants on a planet with Coran. Picking Pidge up so she could reach the highest cabinet, listening to Hunk sing and play around with the guitar they found at Space Mall. _Allura_ , lovely Allura, with whom one could hold the best conversations. And now they were all… so far away. Shiro was the only on Keith saw on the regular, and even that wasn’t very often. He understood Lance, every word he was saying.

“I wasn’t ready to lose it all,” said Lance. “I wasn’t… we got back, and the war was over, and everyone just split up. Why did we do that? Keith, why did… why did everyone leave each other? I-I’m supposed to just go back to my family like everything is normal? I lost my grandparents, and… and everything’s different. I reinvented myself around Voltron, Keith, I relief on all of you, and then we just… left each other.”

Lance was crying again, and it hurt Keith to see.

“I wasn’t ready for everyone to leave.”

Keith could feel tears building in his eyes, but didn’t really know what to say despite the overwhelming emotion building in his chest.

“I know,” he said. “Lance, I know.”

“I’m sorry I took it out on you,” Lance stuttered. “My job… I left it, and my family, because I don’t know where I’m meant to be but it’s not that. I was just… forced into it, like we all were because they never give us any time. I’m just lost, man, I’m lost. And I’m sorry. I didn’t know what I was doing, and I should’ve known it would hurt you, and I’m sorry.”

Keith stared at him, at the man he loved, watched him wipe away more tears and straighten out his shoulders, preparing to be brave in the face of rejection. Didn’t he realise, amid all his own confusion, that he was the only thing that made sense to Keith?

“I don’t know what I’m doing either,” Keith said softly. “I came with you because… because I missed you. I miss Voltron too, I miss our family, and you were…”

He swallowed, finding words were difficult.

“Always so important to me.”

A heavy pause, where Lance’s eyes were locked on him.

“Am I meant to go back to the Blade, I… I don’t know. I know I’m not meant to marry- I… he wasn’t right and I know it, but it scares me so much to admit. I don’t… I didn’t want to be alone, anymore. It was the easy way out, maybe like that job you got, or going back to live with your family. How the hell to we know what’s right, Lance?”

Lance gave the briefest, most wobbly smile, and Keith drew a very deep breath before continuing.

“I know I don’t sleep well at night. I don’t… function well in a lot of ways. The incident you mentioned, it’s… it’s why I’m here. I guess it was the final push I needed to come back to Earth and figure my shit out again.”

He sighed, deeply, feeling the cold infiltrate his skin and bones.

“We were on a mission,” he said. “Into a territory that was still semi-hostile. It was a non-contact mission, but there were still Galra there who were… not sided with anyone yet. One of them just… he didn’t even attack just looked at me funny but I… lost it. I attacked him. Krolia said it’s a thing young Galra can do, especially if they haven’t received proper training, haven’t, you know, been raised right. I don’t even… I don’t know what I did it’s like a blur. B-but I nearly killed him. It made huge problems for us, and now Kolivan’s trying to sort it out. Anyway I’m… here now, because I can’t be there. I don’t even know if I want to go back there, I don’t know what I want.”

Keith looked up to find Lance’s wasn’t crying, though his eyes were certainly watery. There wasn’t hatred there, like he’d feared, more of a sad understanding.

“Neither of us knows, do we?” Lance asked.

Keith shook his head. Then Lance was moving. The hug was unexpected, but far from unwelcome. It wasn’t warm, if anything Lance felt even colder than him as he grabbed Keith and tugged him into a hug, but it was everything he wanted. Lance bit back on a choked sob as he tugged Keith in tight and rest a chin on his shoulder. Keith clung to the lapels of his jacket, them to his shoulders when he could rearrange his arms, half laughing and half crying into Lance.

“I know I’m sorry,” Keith mumbled, and Lance hugged him tighter.

“And I know what I don’t want. I don’t want to lose you.”

There was a hand cupping his head, which was unexpected but so gentle, just holding him that extra bit closer with the smallest amount of more care. Keith might just dissolve.

“I accept your apology,” said Lance, when he finally pulled back. “And I’m sorry, for everything, and for what’s happened.”

Keith sniffled, and nodded tightly. “Me too.”

Lance cleared his throat, still loosely clutching a sleeve.

“And if you want, you… I mean you definitely don’t have to, but I’m gonna keep driving. If you want to come with, keep going… you can. I actually like when you’re there too.”

Keith smile was fragile and half frozen, but genuine.

“If you let me pick the music more than one song in every hundred.”

“One in every ninety-nine then,” Lance announced, his teeth now chattering from the cold.

“Okay,” said Keith, also shivering.

“Can we go somewhere warm?” Lance asked. “I’m freezing my ass of. Let’s get hot chocolate or something.”

“O-okay,” Keith said again, except this time he was _really_ shivering.

It got a laugh out’ve Lance, and he slung an arm around Keith’s shoulders, tugging him close as they made their way on shaky legs out’ve the park.

“And Keith?” He asked, as they left the frosty park and stumbled towards the warm orange glow of the city.

“Yeah?”

“I’m really glad you came back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't edit this sorryyyyyyyy  
> Also I’m very sorry for not replying to comments, things have been hectic, but I am so thankful to you all!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short and sweet chapter cause I'm a busy gal, but thank you so so much for reading! I really appreciate the lovely comments so many of you are leaving, and again sorry if I don't get to replying to you- but please enjoy this chapter <3

There was an Irish pub on the street intersecting the corner of the park that Lance and Keith ended up stumbling into, frozen to the bone since neither was dressed appropriately. Lance let Keith order them two hot chocolates while he found a place to get cozy, then sat himself down in the booth with the intention not to move for the rest of the night. They were detached from time in here. They’d just gone through and recovered from the biggest fight of their life, yet here he was feeling neither numb nor emotional, just a hollow piece of the room that the air and the sounds and the feelings flowed through. Lance was sure that if he went back outside and stood on the cold street corner, he’d feel like ice and a chilled wind and loneliness, as it all appeared within him as if he was glass. But in here it was warmer, and safer, and pleasant, so that was how he felt. Keith fell into the seat across from him and beamed as he set down the mugs, and Lance could feel that smile rushing into him as eagerly as a piece of starving earth swallows up the rain.

“Yours is the one with marshmallows,” said Keith.

“Thanks,” said Lance.

He felt warm, warm, _warm_ , and when he brought the mug to his lips and took the first sip he felt sweeter than before. The room was liquid, moving to fill the space, and the space was Lance, like the glasses balanced on the bar. He liked it like this, liked how the world tasted. That was the wonderful thing about crying, and admitting to your faults, about draining yourself to the core- because then you could be filled again with the most beautiful and amazing things in the world.

“Keith,” said Lance, “why are you adding sugar to your hot chocolate?”

“Because I’m cold,” the man replied, ripping open a second packet of sugar and tipping it all into his mug.

Lance watched the sugary lump sink through the foam, his wobbly smile growing bigger, and brighter. The world was so, so nice when Keith was there.

“And,” Keith continued, “the more sugar I consume in a shorter amount of time, the more energy I will have to warm up.”

“That’s so dumb,” said Lance. “You’re going to get diabetes.”

“No I won’t, I’m Galra.”

“Keith, you’re allergic to shellfish, don’t act like being Galra gives you any dietary advantage.”

Keith glowered into his drink, pretending to give Lance the cold shoulder but smiling warmly behind his mug. It was endearing, like so much else he did, and Lance lacked the energy to fret over what that meant, or to dwell on the fact that an hour ago they’d been close to losing their friendship forever.

“You have a moustache now,” Lance mumbled, only half aware of what he was saying now that he was suddenly very warm and very, very happy that there was a cup of sweetness in his hands and a beautiful man across from him.

Keith scoffed, quickly swiping the foam off his upper lip.

“You should grow one for real,” Lance said. “It’s the only way you can make your hair any worse.”

“Shut up,” Keith mumbled, stirring around the sugar. “You’re the one who needs to shave.”

“Do not.”

“Do too. You’ll have a beard soon.”

“A beard? This is a conscious effort, it takes time to perfect the stubble I have, it is a practiced _art_ -“

“You forgot to shave,” Keith said, and smirked.

“Whatever, moustache man. Hey what about Shiro, has he still got that weird… beard thing?”

Keith snorted into his hot chocolate. “Yeah, and Adam hates it.”

“Iconic,” said Lance.

“He looks so old. He could be someone’s grandpa.”

“Wow, what’s Adam think of you calling his husband an old timer?”

“They’re _both_ old timers. Like, they raised me, and now they’re raising another kid. _After_ raising me, and I am fully raised, so that’s like if I was raising a kid which means they’re definitely old timer age.”

Lance laughed aloud, more at Keith’s focused expression than his words. Keith chuckled slightly too, bringing his legs up onto the booth so he could lean against the window separating them from the chilly night.

“Man, I haven’t seen them in so long. It’s… it’s been years.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Keith admitted sadly.

“You didn’t see them when you first got here?”

Keith shook his head.

“No. I was trying to stay away from everybody for a little while. Get on my feet. They did visit a couple of times in space, but… I’d like to visit them. You know, spend more time with the kids.”

Lance nodded, noting that while Keith didn’t necessarily look sad, he still had that uncertain look about him.

“Seeing that picture of Sylvio and Nadia kinda reminded me,” Keith said, managing to crack a smile. “They’re so much older now. I don’t want to miss out on being an uncle.”

“You wont,” Lance said. “You’ve got time, Keith. So much. I think that’s part of our problem. Cause when we finished Voltron, my life expectancy jumped from a couple of months to… to _years_. Decades. That’s something that’s… funny to accept, maybe. We were close to death even though we weren’t, at all. We were just getting started, it… shouldn’t have felt like we were losing everything.”

Keith thought on that for a second, fingers wrapped tightly around his mug.

“You’re right,” he said after a second, and smiled. “Thanks, Lance.”

“You’re welcome, but I don’t think I did anything.”

Keith just smiled, stirring the spoon aimlessly around his mug and glancing out the window. It was cold out there, and they’d have one hell of a miserable walk getting back to the truck, but it wasn’t something to worry about, not while they were here. Keith looked so comfy now, in his jacket with a warm drink cradled in his hands. Lance watched him inspect the candles the bar had set up on the window sill, wax melted over the tops of empty bottles, glowing orange. There weren’t too many others out, but the people in the pub all minded their own business, speaking to whoever they were with so their voices carried like honey across the still pocket protected from night.

“You know what I think we should do?” Lance began.

It caused Keith to look up, and had his eyes changed colour in this light? Were they always that… deep? He should really fix his hair, cause although it might’ve been braided earlier, it was all coming loose now and the next strand to fall almost perfectly across his forehead and cheek was going to send Lance into cardiac arrest.

“Yeah?” Keith asked.

Lance cleared his throat, looking pointedly at Keith’s ear in the hopes that was a safe bet. It wasn’t, because now that he was noticing it, Keith had really nice ears. They were just kind of a nice shape, and they looked particularly good when he tucked a lock of hair behind them-

“I think we should date,” Lance blurted.

“What?”

“Pick a date,” he wheezed. “To get to Veronica’s.”

Lance raised his mug and downed about half the drink, just so he could keep his face hidden for an extra few seconds. When he set it down, Keith was watching him strangely.

“Like, we chose a date to try and get there,” Lance said. “Cause we’re too aimless right now.”

“Okay,” said Keith. “You’re the one driving, so if you think so.”

Lance shot him a tight smile.

“Cool. We should also have fun.”

“Okay…”

“Like, do things,” Lance said. “Turn this into a proper road trip. Cause mostly all we do is drive, so we should stop places. You have to pick at least two things a day. Else, you’ll be voted out the car.”

“Yeah, by who?”

“Me.”

“You can’t be the only one voting!”

“Yes I can.”

“What if I vote you out the car?”

“You can’t. Driver’s vote counts for two.”

“What if I _drive_?”

Lance gasped. “You _are_ trying to steal my truck. I knew it, can’t stick to his own vehicle, that’s Keith for you.”

Keith chuckled, and Lance felt the rush of it through his skin.

“I think that’s a good idea,” said Keith. “I’d like it.”

“Yeah? Any ideas on dates?”

“You said you wanted to make it before Christmas, right?”

“Yeah.”

“In that case, Christmas Eve could be nice, you know? My dad and I always spent Christmas Eve together.”

Lance smiled, partially thanks to his choice, partially due to the little bits of information he was learning about Keith.

“Christmas Eve it is.”

He held out a hand, and Keith shook it, resulting in them both breaking down into giggles. When Keith retreated again, it was to begin scooping up the leftover sugar from his empty mug and, much to Lance’s horror, eating it.

“No! Keith, ew, don’t just eat the plain sugar!”

“What’s wrong?”

“You are- who _raised_ you? I’m having words with Shiro. Ew, just, stop eating it, I’m getting you another hot chocolate so you can at least… tip it in.”

Keith laughed at him all the way up to the bar, but Lance didn’t care. What he did care about was the soft smile on Keith’s face when he returned, the way the night framed his face and the way their conversation flowed naturally again, finally, completely, unhindered by everything time had changed.

-

“I want to stop at the goat farm.”

After finally leaving the pub at near midnight, Lance was relieved to say they’d made it to the truck alive, and then to a hotel with vacancy for the night. As neither men had much interest remaining in the city, they’d started out on the road the next morning at a reasonable hour, sitting for a little while in the traffic before they were out on the country roads again. Keith was back in his usual place in the passenger seat, happily chewing on the bagel they’d bought for breakfast as he stared out at the pastures around them.

“That’s the second sign I’ve seen,” Keith continued. “Five more miles, there’s a goat farm.”

“Why?” Lance asked, amused, eyes leaving the road for a short second to look over Keith.

He was much cheerier when he was allowed to sleep past eight, though he still had a very pensive look about him as he scoured the road side for more signs.

“Because.”

“You really wanna see goats?”

“I have to pick things to do else I’ll be voted out the car.”

Lance chuckled. “I mean, we have all day, you don’t have to pick goats-“

“You don’t want to see goats, why?”

“I don’t know man, they’re goats! You real into goats?”

Keith shrugged. “I’ve never been to a goat farm. Sounds dumb.”

“Sounds _dumb?_ ”

“ _Yeah_.”

“That’s why you wanna go?”

“Yep,” said Keith, popping the _p_. “Dumb goats.”

“I mean, okay,” said Lance, still torn between laughing the whole thing off or taking him seriously. “Goat farm it is.”

Keith smiled, satisfied, watching eagerly for the turn off. True to the signs, another mile or two down the road, and Lance was sighing as he pulled off onto a dirt road leading down a slight hill towards green pastures.

“Are those… alpacas?”

“I don’t care about the alpacas,” said Keith, pointing ahead. “There’s goats.”

“Oh come on, alpacas are a hundred times better than goats,” Lance protested.

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

Lance scoffed, bringing the truck to a stop in the small gravel parking lot and gazing out the window at the goats grazing in an enclosed paddock nearby.

“Come on,” Keith insisted, grabbing his jacket off the back seat and hopping out.

Lance followed reluctantly, still pretty amused at his choice. There was a nicely done up barn house to greet them, as well as an actual house and more rustic barns further along the road, looking less open to the public. Keith lingered by the fence separating them from the goats, hands stuffed into his pockets as he peered down at a pair of young looking goats. One of them bleated loudly at him, and he grinned.

“They sound so ugly,” he said, and turned to Lance. “This is perfect.”

“You’re… _happy_ they make that sound? It’s twisted! They’re cute baby goats and then they open their mouth and the devil jumps out!”

Keith chuckled, still grinning far too widely to be considered completely innocent.

“You know I don’t even care that much about goats,” he said. “But your face has been priceless since we passed the first sign.”

“Wha- Keith! Did you bring me here out’ve spite?”

But Keith was already walking off towards the barn, shoulders shaking a little with quite laughter.

“I still win buddy!” Lance called, following after him. “Cause they have alpacas too!”

The inside of the barn house was done up to attract tourists and other bored drivers. They’d set it up as a shop, with false lanterns hanging cutely from the ceiling and racks of knitwear. The one or two other visitors were both elderly, and didn’t bother the pair of men ogling every off product they came across.

“Goat soap,” said Lance. “To be expected.”

“Goat shampoo?”

“Less expected, but reasonable.”

“Goat… bath bombs,” Keith murmured. “Wait, goat _perfume_?”

“Oh, I wanna test it so bad,” Lance muttered, squinting at the bottle.

“Goat chocolate? Oh god, how does that even work?”

“Maybe it’s just to stick to the theme?” Lance whispered.

“Maybe. Or do you think they like, blend a little goat in-“

“Oh my god, stop.”

“I’m just saying,” Keith exclaimed. “Would you want to eat goat chocolate?”

“Ew, no,” Lance said, crinkling his nose and pushing past towards the knitwear.

There were fuzzy jumpers and dozens of beanies in a basket, as well as gloves that were softer than he’d expected when he stuck his hands in.

“Oh my god, Keith, this is the softest thing I’ve ever felt.”

“Alpaca stuff?”

“Yes, it’s so soft I’m gonna leave my hands here forever.”

That drew another smile from Keith, and Lance really, really loved when he could do that.

“Guess the cars mine for the taking them?” Keith asked, inching his fingers towards Lance’s pocket containing the keys.

“Hey! No, lion thief!”

They ended up spending the better part of an hour at the goat farm, thoroughly investigating everything they found in the store, then returning outside to watch the goats. Lance had never seen Keith so excited when, thanks to his signature McClain charm, he convinced the owner to let the ex-paladin hold a baby goat. The man was practically beaming when they got back onto the road, even if they both smelt distinctly of goat.

Keith’s second pick of stop was a local art gallery in a town they passed through, and while the art was admittedly boring, Lance could appreciate the company, the simple joy of having Keith there beside him to point at art and laugh in whispers. Their fight was still fresh in mind, but neither brought it up, and neither did anything to upset the peaceful equilibrium they’d achieved. Were they that good at putting things behind them, Lance pondered as they drove?

Voltron had made them quite good at that he supposed. You lost a battle and you lost a dozen lives, but by the next day you needed to be past it. Someone got injured and you carted them, bloody and broken to the healing pods, and the next morning they were fine. They bounced back again and again, faster and more recklessly each time. How many lives had Lance seen lost before his eyes that he’d just… forgotten? Not because he didn’t care, but because he simply could not afford to dwell on them. Because grieving the life of a stranger he couldn’t save on one planet would mean failure to save another given their next chance. Like a yoyo, Lance thought, kinda dumb, but it made sense in his head. Up and down, up and down, they fell and they rose and they fell and they rose and they fell- and if they lost momentum? If a finger snagged the string, if they didn’t bounce back up? Then they’d crash, they’d hang, unable to rise and unable to continue.

Lance picked them a walking trail in the later afternoon, since Keith insisted he had to chose stops as well. They meandered through a field of weeds which was nice in it’s own, quite way, and when they were done Lance drove them as far as they could get before the sun gave in. There was a diner not far from the motel they picked, which they stopped at for dinner. It wasn’t any more exciting than burgers and fries, but in Keith’s company Lance felt young again, like the dumb teenager he’d been in the Garrison, when he’d sneak out with his friends and pretend they knew anything about the world.

“I gotta tell Hunk how much I miss his cooking,” Keith mumbled around a fry heaped with mayo.

“You can’t drop by his digs with the Blade? You know, guest appearance in the space kitchen?”

Keith snorted. “I wish. You know Voltron, either someone’s gotta die or someone’s gotta get married to get us back together. Someone should take one for the team to get some of Hunk’s cooking again.”

“Well, you were closest.”

“To getting married or to dying?”

“Oh, both,” said Lance, making Keith snort.

“That’s a terrible thing to joke about,” he snickered.

“You’re right, I’m sorry.”

Keith shrugged. “It’s true. Bit of dark humours the least of our problems.”

Lance smiled, but there was a twinge of discomfort in his chest, now that he was thinking it over.

“Hey, we should… send a picture to the others. I know everyone’s kind of been hounding me just to know what’s happening and I’ve been ignoring them.”

Keith looked down sheepishly.

“Yeah, me too.”

“It’s nice, ignoring it all some times.”

Keith nodded in agreement, then looked up with a smile.

“We should send them something though.”

“Selfie? Is that too cheesy?”

“Again, least of our problems.”

With a shrug, Lance got up from his side of the booth and swung around to sit next to Keith.

“Now make a face like you’re having the worst time of your life,” Lance instructed.

“Shouldn’t be hard.”

“Hey!”

Keith laughed at the finger that jabbed at his side, but turned his smiling face to the camera as Lance turned the screen on them.

“Say _Garfle Warfle Sni_ -“

“ _Lance_.”

Lance managed to poke his side again and get Keith to actually smile before he took the picture, thumb tapping the capture twice just in case either blinked. He looked it over quickly just to check before hastily putting his phone away.

“I didn’t even see it,” Keith protested.

“It’s cause you look too bad, it’d hurt your feelings,” Lance said.

“Ass,” Keith muttered, grinning when he went to steal a sip of Lance’s milkshake.

“That’s what my first girlfriend called me-“

“Stop harassing me over dinner!” Keith cried, shoving Lance’s fries toward him and almost forcing him to eat.

Lance just laughed, watching that flush recede slightly as Keith pointedly ignored him and went on eating. This was what he wanted, days like these. Playful banter with Keith, meaningless chatter that felt so comfortable to be amoung, and a smile that Lance could look at for a thousand years, and a thousand after that. Keith was no less beautiful than he was three years ago, or six, or when they’d been teens at the Garrison with a supposed price on the others head. Keith remained in his eyes as brilliant as he ever had been. He wasn’t unchanging, wasn’t like a book Lance could simply turn the pages too. Keith changed, but it wasn’t unwanted. Like Lance’s favourite cove along the ocean shore; over the seasons and over the years, the tides would come and the storms would hover and all the sand and rocks would be rearranged and replaced. It would look different every time Lance returned; but when he took his seat on the dunes there and looked across the ocean, he could gaze at the same horizon and the same sun setting over the same expanse of water, no matter how much the sands had shifted. And that, he supposed, was what he loved.

He watched Keith in the crappy diner lights and looked for all the ways he had changed. And he had changed in so, so many. But like the horizon and the water itself, Keith was still _Keith_ at his core, and Lance didn’t know how to feel about it. He watched Keith, and thought about the silly yoyo he used to play with as a child. In their life they kept rising and falling, rising and falling. Lance could feel himself rising, up from the fight and from the loneliness and from the uncertainty; and he feared what might happen if he fell again.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for being patient with this update! This semesters been kicking my ass, so I really appreciate all the lovely comments you've left <3
> 
> [Sedona](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8wifV5RYr8) is the song Lance sings in this chapter if anyone cares to hear it ((I know how caught up I am with cliches I Know and I'm not sorry))

The following two days were spent driving further out and into the country, and Keith found they were his favourite. He and Lance went places on a whim, tried new foods in any small town they stopped at, found more and more music the other hadn’t heard to play in the car. Lance picked an old antique store for them to explore, and Keith chose an oldy space museum. They found local pubs where live music was playing, or explored the streets to find the places you could still get ice cream after sunset. They stopped off at roadside attractions, and went in search of waterfalls and trails leading deep into state forests or parks. On the third day they just drove, drove and drove to make up distance, sharing whatever dumb stories they could think of to entertain them as the land morphed from corn field into grassy plains and became flat as far as the eye could see. Then the hills returned and the earth became less green with grass and weeds but red.

Gentle reds, orange really, and the plants became tougher and the trees stouter. The air was still cold, but they were edging into the desert now. They pulled in late to a caravan park that night, doing little more than set up tent before collapsing into bed. Keith doubted there was much to do in that area, since Lance woke him early the next morning to start driving, insisting he wanted to make it to a nicer camp. Keith watched the sunrise through the window, the hazy mingling of colours gentle on his sleepy eyes. He drifted off soon after, and only woke when Lance was pulling into campsite in the late morning.

It was much quieter out here, not a town in sight. There were a few other tents spread out across a substantial area at the base of a rocky hill, but Keith hardly paid attention to them.

“You like being back in the desert, Keithy-boy?” Lance joked, already up and hauling their camping gear out the back.

Keith didn’t reward him with an answer, knew he was joking even though in all honesty he kinda had missed this. Just… the quiet. There was a slight breeze blowing, sweeping orange dust over the rock-hard earth, and thickets of tough looking plants growing in clumps all over the campsite. Keith eyed the tiny cactus growing by his feet, and huffed. Yep, the desert was nice; he couldn’t hear any other campers, supposed the few that were here were either out walking or also appreciating the quiet. The rock faces of the surrounding hills were beautiful, pink and orange and red and white, like the brightest sunset you’d ever seen had just crammed itself into a rock.

“You gonna help set up or what?” Lance called, drawing Keith from his thoughts.

The man was busy shaking out the tent, poles and pegs splayed out around him. Keith scoffed, taking a second to appreciate how Lance looked in the puffy jacket he’d donned. They got their campsite set up fairly quickly, before locking up the car so they could go on a walk.

“Hey, how far do you think I can kick this rock?”

Which brought them to this. Keith sighed, watching Lance eye out the roundish rock he’d picked as his victim. They’d been walking for about an hour now, skirting around the main rocky rise, backpacks stocked with water and some snack at Lance’s insistence.

“I don’t know, how many toes do you think you’ll break?”

“I have _boots_ on.”

“You’re right, your boots against a million year old metamorphosed chunk of planet, one that has survived weathering and erosion for-“

“It’s a small rock, Keith.”

“Okay-“

“Think I can hit the cactus?”

“I don’t want you to hit the cactus. Aren’t they like, protected?”

“Fine, I’m gonna hit that other rock.”

“Everything is a rock out here.”

“The boulder, Keith!”

With that, Lance swung his foot and attempted to kick the rock he’d found as far as possible. He’d probably underestimated its weight, since it flew a few metres but ultimately fell short of its target. Keith chuckled at Lance’s cry of disappointment, continuing along the worn trail.

Lance was clearly enjoying himself, excitedly pointing out the bird species he spotted flying over, especially when they started up the rise. It was nice, made Keith feel free for a precious moment in time. He’d tucked his old engagement ring into a pair of socks and left them at the bottom of his backpack; he didn’t know what he was going to do with the ring yet, but he knew he wasn’t going to put it back on. Should he give it back? Keith didn’t know; that seemed like it could be upsetting. Still, maybe he could pass it onto Krolia and she could pass it… he’d figure it out later.

“Woah! Look at that view!”

As usual, Lance was the best at distracting him from his problems. The man was currently balanced atop a small boulder, hands shielding his eyes from the afternoon sun as he started out across the landscape. He was right, from up here it all looked very impressive. Keith waited while Lance snapped a few pictures on his phone before continuing on to the top. He was glad for the snacks they’d packed when handed some dried fruit near the summit, finding a spot that would give him a good view as Lance darted off to investigate a lizard sunbathing.

It was beautiful up here; the red-brown earth stretched as far as the eye could see, disappearing into a haze before the horizon. Despite the chill in the air, the sun shone brightly and the sky was a clear blue, dotted with birds of prey. Keith spotted a car trundling along the dusty road miles away, no more than a speck from his position at the top of the rock. Scatterings of desert plants cast tiny shadows across the land, and eventually the flat ground sprung up into more hills and rock formations. It was there Keith decided to sit and pull out his sketchbook, getting started on drawing while Lance was still off chasing lizards, bless his heart.

When the other man returned from exploring, it wasn’t to bother Keith; rather, he flopped onto the flat ground with a satisfied sigh and tossed his hat over his face, to rest, or possibly even nap. The silence up here was tangible, the type empty, open places always bled. Keith relaxed into it, the breeze catching on his ear and the scrape of his pencil over the page the only real sounds. This silence had a sound, so absolutely quiet that Keith was tricked into hearing impossible things, like the sun hitting the Earth and the rocks slowly decaying and the planet turning. This was not quiet like space had been, this wasn’t empty, it was full; and he wondered why he’d ever left Earth at all.

Lance sprung up a little while later, energy renewed and ready to talk. He plonked down on the rock next to Keith, barely keeping himself from jumping up and down, clearly on a happiness high from being out here and feeling free like Keith.

“Hey, that’s awesome,” he said. “Your drawing.”

“Thanks,” Keith mumbled, unconsciously shifting his hand a little more over the sketch.

“I’m serious, don’t hide it! Where’d you learn to draw?”

Keith shrugged. “Just lots of practice.”

A pause, and he snorted. “Don’t know if I can draw much else beside the desert and dogs though.”

Lance laughed. “Kosmo a good model?”

“Yeah. It’s surprising how good you get at drawing stuff when you have nothing else to do but stare at them.”

“You spend a lot of time not doing anything?”

“Living in the desert was kind of slow,” Keith admitted. “And the space whale wasn’t all that exciting either.”

“Oh.”

A pause.

“I kind of forget you were stuck there for so long sometimes,” Lance admitted.

Keith shrugged. “It was years ago now.”

“Yeah, but it was… years.”

Frowning, Keith looked up from his drawing to meet Lance’s eye, unsure what the change in his voice meant.

“Well, yeah.”

Lance huffed, embarrassed almost.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Sometimes it just gets me, how long you were gone when… when we didn’t realise, cause it was only for a few months for us. I didn’t… have to miss you for as long as you m- like, were away from us.”

“Missed you,” Keith corrected, catching on Lance’s stutter at the end. “I missed you too. All of you, but it’s okay. I’m glad you didn’t have to miss me for as long.”

Lance scoffed lightly, shaking his head. “It’s so disappointing that you matured. Emotional conversations were so much easier when you were more of an asshole.”

“Oh my god?” Keith scoffed, staring bewildered at Lance as he grinned. “I think you’re the one who had to mature.”

“I’m kidding,” Lance amended. “And don’t try pretend you weren’t smug about being the same height when you got back from the space whale express. That was _peak_ maturity.”

“You caught up fast enough.”

“That I did.”

They fell into comfortable silence, watching the dry afternoon settle over the landscape before them. Keith shut his eyes for a minute, basking in the sun and the sense of stillness. It was nice, to be still sometimes. With Lance.

“Your sketch is really good, I meant that before,” Lance said after a minute. “You ever considered doing it for real, like a job or something?”

Keith smiled, cracking open an eye. “I’m not sure art and saving the universe align that well in the long run.”

“Don’t say that! I mean come on, Hunk managed to combine cooking with diplomacy and universal peace and all that. Maybe you could too.”

“I’ll think about it,” Keith said. “Could try some colour therapy with the Blades.”

“That’s the spirit,” Lance said with a grin. “How about some practice; you got any spare paper? Cause I wanna put _this_ artistic talent to the test.”

Keith laughed at the man gesturing proudly to himself, and handed over a pair of pages from his sketchbook as well as a pencil.

“Go wild, Picasso.”

“Ooh, definitely more of Kahlo man, thank you.”

Keith had to tear his eyes away before the beating of his heart actually alerted Lance to it’s presence, trying to focus on the drawing he’d already begun and not fantasise about tracing out the man seated beside him. What colours could one paint Lance in? Keith could paint him blue, or red, or black and white like the deepest corners of space where the stars still shone bright, where Lance became part of the only home he’d ever known. Or Keith could paint him exactly as he appeared now; brown skin glowing gold in the sun, brows pinched in concentration as his freckled hands fumbled with the pencil and his eyes flickered between the empty page and the vast expanse of land before them. He could paint this Lance a thousand times over, but he didn’t think he’d ever manage to convey how beautiful he looked.

-

By the time they finally left their peaceful spot on top of the hill, and had finished exploring the nearby trails, the sun was close to setting. With it, came a soft evening of stretching blue skies plastered with pink and purple that accompanied them as they dug out the torches and lantern and prepared for nightfall. Lance was just considering what they could put together for dinner when a pair of young campers, similar to their own age, came trampling over from a nearby circle of tents. Keith assumed they’d be looking for some cooking supplies to borrow, or maybe some batteries, so let Lance deal with them while he went to tuck his sketchbook away safely in the car. It was only when Lance approached him he realised they’d been invited to join the little barbeque happening between the other group.

Keith’s own preference for a quiet evening aside, he agreed to go only because of the dashing smile it put on Lance’s face. Admittedly, this camping group had a bit of a nicer set up than them: a cosy looking fire burning with many chairs set up around it, some tents and a tarp under which they had a table with cooking supplies. There were eight other campers, a group of friends by the looks of it, maybe university students, maybe a little older. They were friendly and welcoming, and Keith guessed they’d been invited for the exchange of some extra firewood that Lance had been able to produce for them.

“Hey, I’m Cath!”

One of the women enthusiastically extended her hand to Keith, just as Lance began introducing himself loudly to the rest of the group. Keith’s had never liked crowds, so he was grateful for the one-on-one introduction.

“Hey, uh, Keith.”

“Well, welcome to our little barbeque. It’s nothing fancy but it’s all edible I promise, help yourself to anything.”

Cath moved on after he’d expressed his thanks, and soon Lance and him were guided towards chairs as the group gathered around the fire, one or two of them arguing over when to turn the steaks they had cooking. It was actually really nice, Keith realised after just a few minutes. No expectations, just a bunch of young adults also in search of company, telling stories and jokes and laughing good-naturedly at each other. Keith learnt most were grad students, though one girl turned out to be a pilot, which set her and Keith talking for a while. Lance was definitely the reason they got invited to join though, he was friendly and charming and funny as always, and Keith found himself marvelling at how seamlessly Lance embraced people. It was a pity, really, he was afraid of the job the Garrison was offering; Lance would make an incredible diplomat, just like he made an incredible pilot.

“You guys have a _guitar?_ ”

Keith had drifted into a comfy haze by the time Lance’s excited chatter finally drew him back into focus. Once someone had handed him a steaming mug of tea, and the crackle of the fire and comforting hum of happy voices had surrounded him, he found it easy to just slot into the present without paying particular attention to anything. It was hard to remember the last time Keith felt this safe.

“Yeah, we’ve been dragging it around with the _idea_ of learning,” one of the guys (Rob? Bob? Keith didn’t remember) admitted sheepishly. “You play?”

Lance shrugged, but Keith could see the excitement in his eyes.

“Kinda. My friend’s amazing, so I picked up some tips from him.”

“Well, you’ll be better than us if you want to give it a go.”

Keith nearly laughed at the excitement bubbling off Lance as the guitar was handed over to him. He’d heard Hunk play, and had spied Lance attempting to learn a little off their friend. Now that Lance had the guitar, he looked like he didn’t quite know what to do with it. He rapped his knuckles nervously against the wood, smiling sheepishly and looking around the circle.

“I don’t know what to play.”

That got a few laughs out’ve people, and had others pondering what they wanted to hear.

“Uuuh,” Lance looked around their darkened campsite, then out to the black silhouettes of the surrounding rocks.

He was thinking, and thinking, and Keith gave him an encouraging little smile when their eyes met. Lance smiled in return, looked almost taken back by it, pausing where his fingers had been playing nervously against the board. A few people were suggesting songs and-

“No no no, don’t worry, I got one!”

Lance tore his eyes away, grinning briefly at his audience before plucking a few strings experimentally.

“It’s called Sedona,” he said with a shrug. “Since that’s near where we are.”

And then he started playing. He wasn’t as good as Hunk, because Hunk was their guitar champion and no one was taking that title from him; but he knew how to play and when he struck the right chords, it was beautiful. It was beautiful in a way that was amplified by where they were and the company they were in. But then Lance started to sing, and Keith lost his breath.

He’d heard Lance sing once, and it was during a diplomatic meeting where he and Pidge accidently got plastered on that planet’s equivalence of fruit juice and Shiro had been very angry because they’d been told it wasn’t alcoholic but Lance and Pidge’s metabolisms hadn’t gotten that memo because there they’d been singing loudly and off-key and _awfully_ but this-

 _This_ was different. Because Lance was _good_ at singing. Keith knew it wasn’t just him being stupid and blinded by his crush; the whole circle had fallen silent, watching Lance with wide-eyes, or just embracing the fact that finally someone in their group was a decent musician and they could curl up in their chair and enjoy it. And if Keith thought this man had him off his feet before, now he was floating a million or so miles above the ground.

Lance smiled when he sang, which was awful, because it meant Keith could not look away. It was cold out at night, so he’d donned a beanie, and Keith was torn between how his hair stuck out the base of it in little curled tufts, or how his lips moved around the words as he sang. Lance’s eyes looked darker in the firelight, and his cheeks had gained colour from sitting near the fire. Keith would’ve suggested he put gloves on to keep his hands warm, but that would mean disguising his fingers as they moved seamlessly over the strings, which simply wouldn’t do. Keith knew he was in love, none of this was coming as a shock, but the emotions and the longing hit him so strongly he struggled to just breathe through it. Nothing in his life had seemed this serene.

Where the hell were they? Someplace in the desert, camped with people they hadn’t know until an hour ago, under endless stars and around a warm, crackling fire. The air was cold and sometimes when Keith breathed out he could see his breath mingling with the smoke. They were nowhere, and nobodies; like people in pictures and at the end credits of movies, whose futures didn’t matter because they were just assumed to be happy, yet non-existent. They didn’t have to imagine anything, plan for anything; everything, all of it, was going to be okay. Keith was going to wake up tomorrow, and keep waking up the next day and the next, and if Lance was here right now that meant he’d be there always.

His eyes were on Keith, and had he mentioned how _devastating_ it was that Lance could smile like that while he sang? Could look at Keith like he was deserving of such tenderness, the same type that Lance carried in his soul. Did he have any idea what he was? How much of the world reminded Keith of him, how strongly he felt the need to tangle their paths so completely their futures could never divert as catastrophically as they’d once threatened to do. _Have you told him you love him?_ Rachel’s voice echoed in his head. Had Keith told him, and risked upsetting that gentle smile? Told him only to have Lance withdraw from him, for Lance to turn him down, rightfully, to have him deal with having to move on from _Lance_. No, of course he hadn’t. Keith wasn’t just _in_ love with Lance, he loved him, as a friend and as a teammate and as anything and everything Lance would let them be. He would not sacrifice all that for the sake of wanting more.

The song was drawing it a close, because Lance’s gaze left his and his smile turned into a shy grin as he wrapped up the final few chords and half-hid behind the guitar. He had no reason to hide though, the second he’d stopped singing the whole group was exclaiming how much they loved it, and Lance was smiling wider by the second. There were requests for another, which Lance quickly denied.

“I don’t wanna be that guy who bores everyone with the guitar all night,“ he said with a laugh. “Besides, I think your uh, dinner is burning.”

What followed was a mad yet hilarious rush to pull the steaks and potatoes from the fire. Cath was right, it was nothing spectacular, but to Keith it was perfect. He couldn’t count the hours they spent talking, only that when Lance and him finally dragged themselves back to their own tent, he could barely keep his eyes open. He wasn’t so tired that he could forget Lance’s singing though, even bundled up in the safety of their tent.

“You were really good, you know, singing,” Keith said, struggling to keep his eyes open even though he couldn’t see a thing.

He could hear Lance breathing across from him, knew they were facing each other, could feel the heat off his legs hovering inches from Keith’s own skin. Knew how easy it would be to reach out and _touch_.

“Thanks,” said Lance, breath tickling Keith’s skin.

“I didn’t know you sang so well. It was really nice.”

“Heh, I thought the song suited.”

A pause, and the air felt thick between them.

“Sedona? Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I picked it because of you,” Lance said. “I thought you should know.”

He went very quiet after that, almost as if he’d stopped breathing. Keith used to imagine, once, that maybe Lance would be the first person he kissed. He’d never be his first anymore, but he was willing to bet he would be the best.

“That cause it reminds you of our road trip?”

He’d _never_ wanted to kiss someone this badly.

“Uh… sure,” said Lance. “Yeah.”

“Okay, that sounds unsure.”

It would be so easy. Keith knew what he’d do, just a hand on Lance’s cheek to guide them in the dark, to gauge his reaction and to trace out his features as if they were blind. He wanted to kiss Lance to prove he was loved, to prove Keith would go to the ends of the Earth for him, and further. He wanted to kiss Lance and know if he’d touch Keith’s hair like he had when they’d hugged, to kiss him and know if Lance would move to hold him, like he wanted, because he was cold and so, so tired of being alone and because he’d been in love with this boy, this man, for as long as he could remember what this kind of love _meant_.

“I picked it for a lot of reasons,” Lance breathed.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. I just… it just felt like this, all of this. Whatever it is, more than a road trip, you know?”

“I know,” said Keith.

 _Have you told him you love him?_ Keith had. So had Lance. They all had, their friends, they all knew they loved each other. But Keith had not been granted permission to fall in love.

“Night Lance,” he murmured.

Lance mumbled a little word in response, already half asleep.

“I love you,” said Keith.

“Love you too man,” came the very sleepy, slurred response.

 _I’m in love with you_ , sat there on the tip of his tongue, but it didn’t come out. Keith bit down on it, and shut his eyes, and tried to convince himself this kind of love was enough.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow long time no update, thank you so much for being patient... I really really appreciate the lovely comments <3

The weather could not possibly be any worse for driving. Or it could, perhaps, if they were in a literal hurricane, or it was piling down snow, or the whole road was ice but- no, no okay rain sucked enough, Lance didn’t need to justify how sucky driving in this weather was. It was absolutely pouring down, had been doing so since they woke up and had to hastily pack up camp before all their supplies got flooded. Wasn’t this the desert? _Ugh_ , Lance didn’t understand what the weather was doing out here, only that he was decidedly not liking the amount of water rushing over his windscreen.

“Hey, you wanna pull over for a bit? You look tense.”

Keith had dragged a blanket into the passenger seat with him, and Lance was really wishing that could be him right now.

“No, it’s fine.”

Keith shrugged, before offering him a candy from the bag he held. Okay, so there were some perks to diving in the rain. They’d stayed in their little campsite for three nights total, mostly because Lance loved how calm Keith acted out there. He wasn’t on alert, wasn’t checking for anything; he practically lived and breathed that landscape. They had to move on eventually though, stick to their plan and also hit up the shops because they were seriously low on food. Good food, at least; eating Weetabix for every meal was turning into a type of torture for Lance. And to think he’d ever complained about food goo.

Luckily for them, the rain had started on the day they decided to leave. It came down heavily, and made the dirt roads slick and muddy. Lance drove slowly for the most part, especially once they hit the hills and the ground began to slope. At least Keith was patient, and tried to keep their spirits up throughout the slow day. He made for good company, and helped Lance feel a little less skittish about the slippery roads. That said, no amount of Keith’s optimism could save them when the tires inevitably became stuck.

“Fuck.”

No need to sugar-coat it; this day was not going Lance’s way.

“This could be going better,” Keith admitted.

They both stared glumly out at the rain as Lance revved the engine to no avail. Another minute of trying, and they came to accept their fate, tying up their boots and digging out raingear from the back seat. All other dramas aside, at least Keith looked cute in a rain jacket and hood.

Lance felt drenched the second he stepped from the car, cursing the water that soaked through his jeans and teased the sleeves of his shirt hiding beneath the jacket. Normally he was a big fan of rain, but when it meant digging his truck out from the mud…

“Looks pretty stuck” Keith mused, staring at the wheel that had become wedged when they’d slid a little off the road.

The truck was perched on a hill, seemingly stable for now, but Lance didn’t trust that it wouldn’t roll down that hill given a strong enough nudge.

“Dammit,” he cursed again, softly, looking around for anything that might help them.

“Think we’re gonna have to push,” Keith said.

_It’s muddy_ , Lance wanted to whine and complain, but figured that wouldn’t get them anywhere. Besides, Keith was going to try and dig this truck out with or without his help, and he’d really prefer to help. So with a stifled sigh, Lance joined the man behind his muddied up truck, planted his hands against the trunk, and tried to push. Even with both of them, it wasn’t going _anywhere_.

“Just saying, _I_ stayed in shape after Voltron, so this is kinda your fault,” Lance wheezed, shoving his shoulder against the truck.

“ _My_ fault? May I remind you,” Keith said, panting, “that I’m a member of the Blade. You know, that Galra group, of super strong, very fit Galra?”

“Must suck to be the exclusion.”

“I’m putting in way more effort than you!”

“Yeah? I don’t see this truck moving,” Lance said with a smirk.

Keith’s shocked expression was worth all the mud and rain this was exposing them too.

“You’re not-“ Keith paused, and snickered, still trying to shove the truck out from its predicament. “You’re pushing too hard.”

“Oh haha,” Lance said, though he was genuinely beginning to laugh. “You’re not pushing hard _enough!_ ”

With that he gave the truck an overenthusiastic shove, which resulted in his feet slipping out from under him and nearly face planting into the mud. Laughter tore out of Keith, who was still standing, giving Lance the perfect opportunity to grab his leg and trip him.

“You’re _ffff_ -“ Keith spat out a mouthful of dirt, glaring at Lance on the ground beside him. “You’re fucking dead, McClain.”

Lance was still laughing when he rolled onto his back, blinking at the rain and accepting his fate as more of it soaked into his clothing.

“I don’t know why the truck won’t move,” he whined, as Keith flopped down beside him.

“Lance,” the man said suddenly, turning to Lance with a suspicious look in his eyes. “Did you leave the handbrake on?”

_Oh_ , Lance mouthed, and Keith slapped a muddy hand against his forehead.

“Lance!”

“My mistake!” He yelped, springing up from the mud.

“I’ll push, you go lower the damn handbrake,” Keith muttered, though he was still smiling.

“I’m sorry!” Lance called as he trudged back round to the drivers side.

He shook his head at the sight of the handbrake, wrenching open the door and reaching for it.

“Okay, I’m letting it down. Car feeling stable?”

“I’ve got it just do it!”

“Okay _okay_ ,” Lance said, and lowered the brake.

He’d barely shut the door and taken a step back when he felt the truck begin to slip. His stomach lurched as he lunged for the side of it, hands grappling with the space made for the wheel to try and stop it’s decent.

“Keith! It’s slipping!”

“I’ve got it,” the man call back calmly. “Just push!”

Lance wasn’t feeling nearly so calm. Even if they could hold the truck in place, they wouldn’t be able to push it back up and out-

“Hey it’s slipping more! Keith, get out from behind it!”

“It’s fine!”

“No it’s not! Keith, get out from the back!”

Lance pushed desperately against the truck, swearing under his breathe when the wheels began to slide further. It was going to be out’ve their control any second now, Lance’s feet slipping downhill with it as he clung on uselessly.

“Shit shit shit,” he hissed, jamming his shoulder against the vehicle, but finding they both slid faster and faster anyway. “It’s going! Keith let go!”

Lance didn’t hear if there was any confirmation, because then the wheels were over the steepest part of the slope, and the truck was moving downhill fast. He leapt back to avoid the wheels as it rolled swiftly past him, turning to look where Keith _should’ve_ ducked safely to the side-

“Keith!”

Why couldn’t he see him? Where the hell was he? The truck hit a jarring stop at the bottom of the hill when it hit a bank, meaning Keith was-

“Here.”

Heart hammering in his chest, Lance’s eyes fell to the mud-covered figure laying back down in the dirt. Had he… had he gone _under_ the truck?

“What the hell!” Lance yelled.

Keith was sitting up slowly, blinking a little mud and rain out of his eyes, quite unprepared when Lance grabbed him roughly.

“What-“

“What were you thinking? I said move! Why didn’t you move?”

Keith stared back at him, stunned. Lance realised he’d come to kneeling in the mud again, but by this point he was so dirty he cared very little for that.

“I’m sorry about your truck-“ Keith began.

“Are you kidding? I don’t care about that! Why didn’t you move, you _idiot_ , you could’ve gone under the wheels!”

“Oh,” said Keith.

And god, why’d he have to look so _stupidly_ oblivious? Like Lance gave a shit what happened to his car when Keith ran the real risk of being run over or dragged down the hill by it and crushed into that bank-

“Stupid!” Lance said, mostly because he couldn’t think of anything else that didn’t involve breaking down into tears or something.

“I’m sorry,” said Keith. “But I’m okay-“

He was cut off when Lance pulled him into a bone-crushing hug. Keith waited only a moment before hugging him back, not protesting or anything when Lance tried to dust some of the grime off his hair and jacket.

“This isn’t the damn Titanic,” Lance muttered, starting to get a hold of himself. “Captain does not go down with his ship. He lets ship slide down the hill and then he calls the repair service. Okay?”

He pulled back to look Keith in the eye, still holding gently to his shoulders lest either of them face plant into the mud again.

“Okay,” Keith said, quietly.

Then he smirked. “Does this mean I’m the captain though-“

He yelped when Lance shoved him face first into the dirt, swinging out a hand so they both toppled over once more.

It took an hour for the tow truck to arrive. That was ample time for the fun and adrenaline to wear off, leaving Lance feeling a little skittish about his truck lying at the base of the hill, and giving both men time to freeze and rethink their actions as the rain continued to fall. When it did finally pull up, it took another half hour and an organised effort to retrieve the truck and get it loaded onto the back. Oh, that was going to mean a lot of repairs. The driver didn’t talk much, maybe because of how unhappy he’d been to see two soaked, muddy men hopefully awaiting a lift into the nearest town. His eyes kept drifting to the puddle they were steadily leaving in his car, and all Lance could do was apologise and try to laugh it off. It wasn’t working, the laughing it off part. With the truck finally parked at the service station, they were left without a lift, and still soaking wet, on the streets of a tiny and unfamiliar town.

“I think it could’ve gone worse,” Lance said, standing on the roadside shivering.

“Definitely,” said Keith.

“Repair man says it’s gonna take a day or two to fix it up.”

“We’re stuck?”

“Uh, stuck in the best place on Earth,” Lance announced sarcastically, grinning at his companion.

Keith shook his head with a scoff, black hair plastered to his cheeks and mud still staining the sleeves of his jacket.

“You wanna go somewhere?” Lance asked, shouldering his backpack and staring out into the drizzle.

“No, I was going to stand here on the curb all night.”

“Funny.”

Keith smirked, spying on Lance rom the corner of his eye.

“Yeah, let’s go somewhere.”

They didn’t make it quite to a hotel, but figured they would later, given the allure of a warm café bar just down the street proved a little too much. This town didn’t seem like much, but it had its charm. The centre was small, homey; no skyscrapers, but it still had life, people running from the local supermarket to their cars to escape the rain, and restaurants glowing gold through their windows as the world outside grew darker and gloomier. They were still situated somewhat in the desert out here. Lance would’ve called it dry were it not currently raining god’s wrath down on them, so he’d settle for barren.

They were drawn towards the bar mostly for its music, which was pleasant and loud and spilling out onto the street. The inside was pretty packed, and the outdoor patio deserted thanks to the rain. Plastic chairs and tables sat under folded umbrellas dripping with water, potted plants soaking up the rain as the evening drew in and the street lamps began to light up. Lance ended up weaving his way through the people towards the bar while Keith found somewhere safe to stores their packs. The atmosphere was nice in here, but a little too crowded for Lance’s taste, or at least what he was feeling at the moment. By the time he’d secured two drinks and wound his way back towards the entrance, Keith was staring out at the rain. He was perched right on the doors edge, so the drizzle still got to his ankles. His smile felt warm though, when Lance handed over a glass and watched the light mingle with the golden liquid as Keith took a sip.

“I think we’re a bit damp to sit in there,” said Keith, nudging a shoulder towards the bar.

Lance shrugged.

“Nah, too many people anyway. It’s nice out here. S’long as you’re not too cold?”

A shake of his head, and Keith brought the glass to his lips. Rain, and music, and drinks, and Keith. Lance’s life felt oddly perfect, for a second.

“Looks like there’s a fair across town,” Keith said, his gaze pointing the way to a flash of purple light and distance screams and laughter.

“Looks like it.”

“Maybe we should check it out tomorrow.”

“Since we’re stuck.”

They fell back into comfortable silence, the clatter of rain against the ceiling mixing with the music from indoors. How could anyone feel unhappy, how was he ever unhappy, when the world could feel like this?

“I’m really sorry about your truck,” Keith said.

“Don’t be, it’ll be fine. Who cares about a few more dents anyway? That things old enough.”

Keith turned to smile at him, and maybe the rain was washing more dirt out from his hair, because now there was a bit of it smudged on his cheek.

“Oh, you got-“ Lance gestured to it, but Keith just frowned.

With a sigh, he leant forward, carefully wiping the dirt off and trying not to breathe because this suddenly felt a hundred times more awkward than it had a second ago.

“Had some dirt,” Lance mumbled, quickly retreating back.

Keith was just staring at him, not saying anything, and it was kind of driving him crazy. That wasn’t weird, it was not weird. If anything, _Keith_ was making it weird by staring so much. Lance tipped his head back, trying to down as much of his drink as he could in one go because wow this felt awkward-

“Lance-“

“Can we dance?” Lance asked. “I like, really want to dance.”

“Uh, I don’t know if there’s enough space,” Keith said, eyeing the bustling indoors.

“No, not there. Let’s dance out here, we’re wet enough anyway. I don’t think it’ll make a difference,” he said with a laugh.

Keith raised a brow.

“You want to dance in the rain?”

“Uh, yeah?”

A little bit of alcohol made for a lot of confidence; unless it wasn’t the drink, unless it was just Keith’s eyes and the feel of this place and the colours when the street lamps and rainwater and Keith’s black hair all mingled and-

And _okay_ , Lance was going to shut up now. In his brain. His brain was going to shut up.

“Please?” He said.

A deep sign, then Keith was shrugging.

“Sure,” he said, “why not?”

He set down his drink and joined Lance on his feet, flinching a little when he first stepped out into the rain. And then they just sort of… stood there, not too close, looking at each other.

“I just want you to know I feel like a big idiot right now,” said Lance.

“You _suggested_ this.”

“I know, that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to feel stupid!”

“Oh my god,” said Keith. “do you want to do this or not?”

“Okay, admittedly I hadn’t really thought it out. So, give me a second.”

“You have a second,” said Keith, crossing his arms.

He looked uncomfortable, directionless, because he, like Lance, suddenly had no idea what they were doing either.

“We can go sit down again-“

“No no no!” In an act of desperation, Lance moved forward and grabbed onto his companion.

It was even more awkward now. Or would have been, until Keith burst out laughing.

“How did you even survive middle school,” he said, glancing at where Lance had gripped his wrists.

“You’re a funny guy Keith,” Lance muttered, flushing as he moved his hands into Keith’s.

Ah, yes, holding hands; that was bound to be _far_ less awkward. It shut Keith up though, had him looking rapidly between their hands and Lance’s face.

“I don’t really know this music,” Keith admitted.

“Me neither. Just pretend it’s ABBA or something, I don’t know.”

Keith snorted, and Lance walked them in a jerky circle just to make clear _he_ was the one putting in effort here.

“Do you usually do that?” Keith asked, smile on his face. “Like, do you just pretend its ABBA every time?”

“You suck at this.”

“Please, I have to know.”

“Oh my god,” Lance whined, but he was beginning to smile. “You’re the worst person I’ve ever danced with.”

Keith chuckled, and Lance had to along with him, because they were still walking in the same dumb circle and not going anywhere. That stupid giggling was turning into full out laughter, until they were forced more into each other’s arms because they were doubled over so much.

“You are so _bad at this_ ,” Lance complained, before taking a proper hold of Keith’s arms while the other mimicked him.

“I,” said Keith proudly, “am a prodigy.”

“You’re too old to be a prodigy.”

“Then I’m a natural,” said Keith, and purposefully planted his foot in a nearby puddle.

Lance could barely feel the water hit him, since he was already so soaked, but the grin on Keith’s face told him it was more of a thought-that-counts sort of thing.

“You are the rudest man I know,” said Lance.

The little circle they were walking in was speeding up, until he guessed this could be considered some form of very boring, mundane dancing.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Keith, and landed in the puddle again.

He laughed when Lance tugged them away from it in response, thus progressing this dumb dance a little further. The rain was still pouring down, but Lance felt lighter now. He lead them into a little stepping pattern, and Keith amused him by following. Who knew what they were doing, perhaps dancing, perhaps just playing in the rain, but Lance liked it. The world was all deep, dark blue out here; they’d loose the light soon, the blue glow of the heavy clouds, and then it would just be the street lamps and shop fronts to guide them. But right now, everything was oddly blue, the sky and the folded umbrellas, the plastic chairs dripping with water and the tiled courtyard shining in the rain. Every step they took kicked up water, until the sound of their footfall and the rain on the roof was louder than the music could have hoped to be.

It had lost some of its humour, but that had only surrendered to a deeper, more complicated emotion Lance didn’t care to name right now. They were dancing, weren’t they? They were still holding hands, but Keith had stopped laughing now, as if he was content with whatever this was. Lance should feel cold, but the rain and the cool air only felt like electricity on his skin. Keith still smiled when the sweep of a foot sent water over their ankles, and when he had to push back his sopping fringe, but it lacked the tease it had to it before. Instead, he held Lance’s hands firmly, and would glance off at the falling rain when maintaining their gaze felt too much. Lance didn’t know what to think, that when he looked at Keith and felt the weight of his hands, he felt like a future. As if finally, he was a direction.

“It’s kinda nice,” said Lance.

He was worried the rain would steal his words away, especially ones so soft, but Keith looked to him with expectation anyway.

“Whatever we do now,” said Lance. “And with our lives, it doesn’t matter what it is, because anything will always be better than dying in some dumb war when we were kids.”

Keith blinked at him, water dripping from his chin and eyelashes and god, Lance wished he could brush that away.

“Yeah,” Keith said. “I guess so.”

It was nice, when Keith looked at him. His gaze felt just like the hand in his own, steadying, something that held him in place but didn’t trap him.

“I still want you to have the best life you can though,” said Keith.

He looked blue, in the rain. His hair was darker, and so were his eyes, and he was really, really beautiful.

“Yeah,” Lance said, clearing his throat, which suddenly felt dry. “I want that for you too.”

They were just swaying now, which was nice. Logically, Lance knew they should get out the rain soon, before they caught hypothermia, but he didn’t want this is end.

“That’s why you left your fiancé,” he said quietly. “Didn’t you? He wasn’t going to give you the best life you could have had?”

Keith’s face was solemn, but he wasn’t angry.

“Yes,” he admitted. “Is that selfish?”

Lance shook his head, gently at first, but more vigorously when he saw the look in Keith’s eyes. It was a genuine question.

“No,” he said. “No, Keith, you’re not- of course that’s not selfish.”

“It feels like it was sometimes.”

“Why?” Lance breathed.

Keith’s hands had gone from his wrists to his waist, somehow, but Lance didn’t mind.

‘I don’t know,” Keith mumbled.

He sounded sad, which he shouldn’t have, especially not now in this moment. Lance was reaching for him without thinking, tilting Keith’s chin up with his thumb before he could consider the consequence. It felt natural, and Keith didn’t protest, just raised his chin and met Lance’s eye, even though his own were cloudy with sudden sadness.

“Maybe cause… cause we were happy. And I ruined that.”

“Were you?” Lance asked. “Were you happy?”

This was different to the first conversation they’d had about the matter. The first was a mistake; it was Lance acting impulsively, jealously. Now though, when he was looking past his own beliefs and desires, he could just see Keith, his friend, upset.

“I think so,” Keith whispered.

They didn’t need to speak this softly. No one could hear them out here, the rain masked that, and no one could see them, which the night ensured. Lance’s hand moved from below Keith’s chin to his cheek. It felt cold beneath his palm, like all of Keith, from his sopping hair to the sodden shoes on his feet.

“It just… it felt like there was more,” said Keith. “And I’d be losing it, if I stayed.”

“You wanted something new.”

“No,” said Keith.

His brows furrowed, and he shook his head, lightly, leaning further into Lance’s palm.

“No, I didn’t want anything new.”

Keith spoke like he was so sure of himself. His fingers tightened around Lance’s waist, looking up at him with some strange sort of intent. Lance felt frozen, breathe stuck in his throat, tongue numb in his mouth.

“Uh, what… what did you want?”

Keith just kept looking up at him, and it wasn’t fair, that from this angle Lance could see the droplets of rain that had settled on his lashes. It really, really wasn’t fair. It made him think things that weren’t true, tricked him into seeing Keith’s look as being almost _hungry_ , like this was more than just two friends holding each other out in the rain which was… objectively not so normal to begin with. Keith was really taking a very long time to answer, which wasn’t doing Lance any good. His eyes kept dropping to the others lips, anticipating what he was going to say, but the words kept delaying. Lance’s hand was still on his cheek, and when he stretched his fingers out he could slide them into Keith’s sodden hair. It felt cold, and soft, like the rest of him, slipping through his fingers until Lance felt he could sink into this moment.

“I don’t want new,” Keith said, voice barely a whisper under the currents of rain.

Except now that he actually had spoken, Lance couldn’t look away from his lips. What did that even _mean?_ Did he care? Or did he just want to look at Keith forever, his eyes, his lips, the rain on his cheeks, Lance’s fingers sinking into his hair-

“Excuse me,” said a very loud, drunk, and irritable voice. “Is this one of your phones?”

The pair separated at the speed of light, hands withdrawing and fingers curling in shame, eyes averted because _what had that been?_

“It’s been ringing in your bag for ten bloody minutes,” the man standing in the doorway clutching a beer and ringing phone exclaimed.

He didn’t sound angry, just… exasperated. A brow was raised when neither man replied, and he thrust the phone in their direction.

“Uh, it’s not, that’s not mine,” Lance said, returning to his senses.

Keith sighed deeply, before trudging over to the man and snatching the phone out of his hands.

“It’s Shiro,” he said.

The loud, slightly off-key country song that had been blaring shut off abruptly when he answered.

_Is_ that really your ringtone? Lance mouthed, earning an eye roll from Keith. _Pidge_ , is what he got in return.

“Hey Shiro,” Keith replied.

They were still standing out in the rain, so Lance did them both the duty of opening the door to allow them in. It had emptied a little inside, so they were able to find a relatively quiet table near the back. After mumbling his way through what sounded like an awkward conversation all the way there, Keith collapsed into his seat with another sigh.

“Hang on, I’m putting you on speaker.”

“ _-it’s perfectly reasonable for me to be concerned at this stage, Keith._ ”

“Shiro, you’re on speaker.”

“ _I’m saying- oh._ ”

“Hey Shiro,” Lance chimed in, sliding in next to Keith.

“ _Hang on_.”

Another few seconds of fumbling, and Shiro’s face popped up on the screen. Wow, Lance really hadn’t seen his in a while. He was unshaven, but intentionally so, which was sort of funny actually.

“Can you please confirm that I’m alive and well?” Keith deadpanned, looking at Lance.

“Oh, you don’t need to worry about this guy, Shiro,” Lance said, elbowing Keith good-naturedly.

“ _You’re right_ ,” Shiro replied, unimpressed. “ _Having you two off on a mission together never caused me a moment’s stress._ ”

Lance laughed, and Keith and Shiro continued to glare at each other through the screen.

“I’m serious, Shiro,” said Keith. “I’m fine.”

“ _A check in would have been nice_.”

Another sigh, then-

“I’m sorry. We’ve been out of signal a lot. And… I’m sorry. I’ll start checking in more. Besides, I thought Lance sent you that picture.”

Shiro frowned, and Lance’s pulse sky-rocketed.

“ _What picture?_ ”

“You know, the one… _Lance_ , didn’t you send it to the others?”

And instead of saying something normal like, oh, I forgot, the first thing out of Lance’s mouth was-

“You just looked too ugly!”

Keith scoffed, before turning back to Shiro.

“That’s a no then.”

The older man sighed, shaking his head.

“ _Where have you guys been, anyway?_ ”

Lance spared Keith some of the talking at first. Besides, this whole trip was his idea, better to spare Keith some of the explanation. It was good catching up with Shiro, after realising how long it had been. Eventually though, Lance left their family to chat, giving Keith space to talk and finding another table to hole up at in the meantime. He left with a promise of looking for places they could stay, but only half looked, as his eyes kept drifting back to Keith. He reverted back into a rebellious boy with Shiro, so much so it was amusing to watch. But Keith had matured too. Lance’s heart jumped when Keith very obviously began talking to whichever niece or nephew had just popped up on the screen with Shiro, and slowly the tension slipped from his shoulders, and he looked calm again.

Lance watched them talk for as long as he dared, stopping to scroll aimlessly through his phone when he thought Keith was looking. It didn’t take long for him to pull up the picture, the one he’d snapped of them in the diner and never sent to any of their friends. He couldn’t, because then they’d all know. There’d be no hiding it, or denying it; no doubting and remaining oblivious to it like Lance had been trying to do. In the picture, Keith smiled at the camera, but Lance’s face was turned to him. Just gazing at him, in an unfortunate second where his finger had brushed the trigger. And nobody, no one on Earth looked at a friend like that, not _just_ a friend. One look and everyone would know how helplessly, hopelessly, head-over-heels in love Lance was. They’d have to notice, that picture made _him_ notice. He was in love with Keith, with his best friend, and it felt like the most precious secret Lance had ever held.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it really a klance fic if they don't dance together at least once? comments make me love you forever


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Sorry for not posting a chapter for 25 years, finals hit me like a motherfucker and between that and moving and work I've been a bit overwhelmed, but thank you for being patient, and thanks most of all for reading

Keith’s nightmare felt like most of them did. It was frustrating, he thought; he should know to expect the smothering feeling, and anxiety he felt knowing that time was running out. Instead, he wanted to curl up like he was a child again, to hide. But he didn’t, of course. He was always swept up in the dream, always walking, _walking walking walking_ , not quiet able to run, but not able to stop either. Everything was so grey and suffocating, like the times in battle he’d become trapped in smoke, except he couldn’t find a way out. It didn’t make clear sense, it never did, but it terrified him.

The shuttle was leaving, and he was never fast enough. But the rush was real, the rush was in his blood, he could feel it crackling under his skin, could feel the wave of hot air over him as that ship launched into the stratosphere. It felt hopeless, like the ship was headed for disaster, and so was he. And all he could do was keep walking, uselessly, on feet that were too slow. He walked straight into the hopeless feeling, until it was dark, like space had been. Just empty and dark, and his feet wouldn’t carry him anymore, not when he needed them. It would always be the same, the feeling of falling towards a fiery star. And someone in a suit, usually black, sometimes pink, sometimes blue. Keith could never get to them, not as they drifted away, towards the star and towards the hopeless feeling and towards the end.

He’d call for them though. Kick and scream and cry because he could hear them. He’d heard enough of Shiro screaming, of his mother crying out in pain in battle, to know what they sounded like. They’d plead with him, to help them, and he tried and tried and _tried. Help me Keith help me, please, help me._ He’d heard Lance struck in battle before, knew how he screamed, and his head would replay it over and over again. But he couldn’t reach them. He just drifted, uselessly, as their bodies drifted further and were engulfed by fire. He’d seen this all before, when Galra were ripped from gutted ships and fighters tumbled into explosions on planets where the fighting dragged on and on and on. Fire was his element, but he hated how final it felt.

It was Shiro again, who he couldn’t reach. Keith was so close, and if he stretched out his fingers he could nearly reach him. But not quite. They just kept falling, agonisingly slowly, until red light was filing his vision. It should burn, and vaguely it did, but the trick of the dream was to fill him with fear. Fill him with terror, and thrust him into every twisted version of every scenario he’d ever been in. He needed to run, he needed to, Shiro was getting away again, falling into the light and the battle and the horrid, horrid sounds of people dying. Keith didn’t want to see this, he never did, not the people they’d failed to save or the terrified faces of others fleeing, children who he never saw evacuate in time. His past was blood and noise, it was fire and suffocating stillness and cities torn down and ships careening downwards and bloody gashes through his skin and teammates falling and Keith wanted to run and run and run-

Something was pulling him out of his dream, a voice that disrupted the images he saw, a touch maybe. Keith fought it, all of it, tried to block out what he saw, what he heard, tried to run and escape from it, until the fact that there was a real voice, and real arms around him, became too loud to deny.

By the time he registered he was fully awake, there were arms locked around his torso, and a warm weight against his back. Keith shuddered, blinking through tears and sweat, releasing the leg he’d been trying to kick was being held still by someone else’s. _Lance_ , his mind supplied, and Keith felt himself sink into the arms around him. He was crying, but there were too many things for his mind to be processing for him to care. The dream was fresh, so fresh he still prickled with the urge to run. But now Keith could feel a hand smoothing over his arm, and how tightly he was being held against Lance’s chest, and it was all beginning to settle.

“It’s a dream,” Lance was saying over and over, speaking quietly into the back of Keith’s hair. “It’s a dream. You’re okay, Keith. Everyone’s okay, you’re okay. Shh, you were dreaming.”

It took that quiet hush for Keith to realise he was still crying, choked whimpers escaping his throat as if he was still trying to call out for the others. It allowed him a small hold of himself, lifting a hand to muffle those embarrassing noises. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to stop the tears leaking from his eyes onto the pillow. At least, that had been his plan. His eyes opened again when Lance gently pried his hand away from his mouth, Keith only just realising he’d been biting into his own skin.

“It’s okay, just let it out.”

At any other time Keith would be mortified. He didn’t want to cry in front of Lance, not any one actually. But those fingers were twining around his own, a thumb stoking gently over his hand, and in Lance’s embrace, he couldn’t help it. The other didn’t say much after that, nothing more than small, comforting whispers that Keith barely understood. But Lance held him as he came down from the nightmare, didn’t go anywhere, didn’t make a single snide comment about Keith crying.

Both still half asleep, Lance pulled the covers back over them when they began to shiver. Keith was impossibly warm then, and safe; he could feel Lance behind him, so clutched his hand just as tightly, and let himself be held. It was Lance who fell asleep first, maybe just as comforted as Keith was. And despite the nightmares, and the dark, and the doubt, Keith felt safer than he ever had.

-

When Keith woke next, it was to bright sunlight streaming in through a crack in the curtains. It look him a moment to orientate himself, still bundled under the covers and finding it hard to open his eyes. Memories of the nightmare he’d had came back slowly, draining a little of his energy, but they were clouded by other, softer feelings. Lance’s arms around him in the night, warm breath of the back of his neck and gentle words being spoken into his ear. There was no one in the bed with him now, of that Keith was quite sure, but Lance had only risen recently, given how warm the sheets beside him felt.

Should it have felt strange, Lance sleeping there? Because it didn’t. Different, certainly, but not strange. Keith cracked open an eye, gazing past the blanket bundled up before his face, to the gap in the curtains where the sunlight was shining through.

Last night had dragged on a while. They’d struggled to find a hotel, so eventually came all the way out here to the outskirts, to a cabin of sorts situated at the base of the hills. Keith preferred it, even if it had meant dragging their soaking selves out here in the middle of the night. It was quiet, and this bed was soft and warm, and outside he could see the empty desert stretching.

Figuring he had to get up eventually, Keith reluctantly extracted himself from the covers. He opened the curtains a little more, let the morning light bathe their shared room in its soft hues. Lance’s bed lay empty, and cold; Keith didn’t mind. He fumbled for a pair of socks, tugging them on before shuffling out into the living area.

Something smelt good out here, and it didn’t take Keith long to spot it. Their cabin was compact, a pair of chairs perched by the window, then a small kitchen tucked away in the corner. It was there Lance stood cooking, humming away to himself and flipping something over in that pan that smelt ridiculously good. Keith was really starting to take issue with Lance’s shoulders though, specifically, his bare shoulders. They were terribly scarred, but that didn’t matter, scars felt like proof of Lance’s survival, like the discoloured flesh stretching over his shoulders was a rightful triumph. It was a hard choice, between running away from a set of shoulder’s that clearly looked too good at this hour of the morning, or wandering closer because whatever he was cooking might actually be the cure to all Keith’s problems.

“Oh, hey, good morning!”

Too late, Lance made the decision for him when he turned and spotted Keith. Keith just stared back dumbly, too stuck on this moment to do much else. How often was Lance like this? If he lived with Lance, if this house was their own, how many mornings would he wake up to a man in his kitchen making him breakfast? Would he be held every night? Would the nightmares stop if he was? What would being loved feel like, what would coming home to Lance feel like, what would it mean to grow old then? The questions came at him like a swarm, overwhelming, over-emotional, until all Keith wanted, all he ached for, was to wake up with Lance every morning and find out what this life they’d been given meant together.

“What are you making?” He asked instead.

“Just eggs,” Lance said with a smile and a shrug, returning to the pan. “A classic. Oh, and maybe pancakes to. But you have to eat the eggs first.”

“What if I put the eggs on the pancakes?”

Keith just wanted Lance to keep turning, and keep talking, cause the sun hit him just right when he did that, and he turned to gold.

“But then you can’t put syrup on the pancakes.”

“What if I put syrup on the eggs on the pancakes-“

“Keith!”

Lance’s laugh was sweet, sweeter than the pancakes on Keith’s plate when they were finally dished out, sweeter than the smell of wood fire that lingered in the air that morning, sweeter than the sun and sweeter than the fucking birds out there singing in their tree. Love like this was making Keith weak, and sappy; one thing was for sure, and that was that fifteen year old Keith would never even have thought about what the birds sounded like. But now, today, over ten years later, he was seated at a breakfast table staring at a man he was hopelessly in love with, nearly tearing up each time he laughed because nothing, _nothing_ , had ever sounded so good.

They travelled back into town just after midday to check on the car. It wasn’t done, still had repairs to go, but instead of heading home immediately they found their way to the fair grounds. Keith had been to his share of country fairs, had usually spent the time eating too much candy and shoving straw into his shoes so he’d be tall enough for the rides he was practically dying to go on. It was different going as an adult, with Lance. On the plus side, he could eat as much candy as he wanted and not be told off for it, but now the screams and laughter rolling off the rides made his stomach turn. They were having fun, all these people, and he knew that, but something about the sound of it set him off, made him drift further from those rides. Lance noticed, perhaps he felt the same, and lead them to the other attractions.

There was a section of field allotted to bumper car races, which Keith felt more comfortable with than the screams echoing off the rides behind them. So they spent the better part of the afternoon there, racing around in the cars like children. Keith bought Lance a bucket of cotton candy, and in return Lance won all of the shooting games until Keith was sure they’d be kicked out. He ended up giving the assorted teddy bears they won to the kids eyeing them, after Keith insisted he would not be carrying around fifty stuffed animals, no matter how proud Lance was of winning them.

This felt like something they should have done as teenagers, especially once the evening began to draw in, and they sat there watching the sunset with cheap fast-food and fizzy drinks. Maybe he wasn’t dashing to ride the most frightening rides he could find anymore, but Keith guessed this was better than any fair he’d been to before.

“So when did you realise ring-tossing was your passion in life?”

Keith scoffed, setting his sights on the target before launching another successful ring.

“Similar to knife throwing.”

Lance hummed beside him, leaning casually over the railing and watching Keith win them yet another game. The sun had set now, but the grounds were lit with hundreds upon thousands of lights, and the place even more packed with people than before.

“Yet you still suck at the shooting ones.”

“I didn’t want to wound your fragile ego.”

Lance faked offence, then went back to eyeing out their potential prizes. Thus far the only thing they’d kept was a tacky red watch Lance had won, which was currently around Keith’s wrist.

“Huh,” Lance said suddenly. “Do you forget we’re famous sometimes?”

Keith snorted. 

“I don’t think we’re famous.”

“Well-liked, then.”

“I guess.”

He tossed another ring, and smiled as it landed around the target.

“Well check these out,” said Lance.

Keith turned, and his eyes landed on the little Voltron keychain dangling from Lance’s fingertips. His companion smirked a little, twirling it around. It was just their little v-shaped symbol, and Keith spotted ones coloured blue, red, green, yellow, black and-

Pink. He looked at that one for a little too long, until Lance’s fingers found it and he scooped it up. It did something, seeing that. Keith looked away, fidgeting nervously with the last ring before tossing it. He missed, but didn’t really care.

“Do you want that?” He asked, turning to Lance.

It seemed as if Lance didn’t hear at first, clutching the little pink keychain and staring at it sadly. Eventually, he reacted, shaking his head and putting it back on the rack.

“No.”

Keith waited for a moment to see if he’d change his mind, then dismissed the store attendant, asking him to transfer whatever they’d won to the pair of friends failing miserably at the game a little way down.

“C’mon, let’s walk, yeah?”

Nudging his shoulder into Lance, Keith received a tight smile before they were walking again. He wanted to comfort, to consul, but maybe Lance just needed a quiet minute.

“I know we talked about it already, but I’m still… it’s still sitting there,” Lance admitted, once they’d left the stand. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

Keith glanced around anxiously, at the crowds of people, the loud sights and sounds, until his eyes rested on the Ferris wheel.

“Come on. I have an idea.”

The line didn’t take long, and Lance was quiet during the wait. He only relaxed once they were seated in their own little carriage, and already a few metres up from the ground. The wheel ground to a stop every few seconds, loading and offloading people periodically, but it just gave them more time alone. The sounds of the carnival could still be heard, but they were blurred, mixing below them like a sickly sweet drink. Their voices wouldn’t be heard by anyone.

“I really miss her,” said Lance. “And I can’t ignore it.”

Keith was silent, not knowing what to say.

“Its not fair,” said Lance. “I just want to _talk_ to her. It’s not fair that… that we can’t see her, can’t know what she’s doing. Didn’t you always want to know, what Allura was going to achieve? I wanted to see her succeed, and be happy again.”

“Me too,” Keith said quietly.

“Maybe she’s happy, but what if she’s not? If she’s not I… it feels like giving up on her. There’s more I should be doing then, because she wouldn’t give up on me, but I’m… I’m just here, doing nothing.”

“You’re not doing nothing,” Keith insisted suddenly, twisting to look at Lance.

The man’s eyes were downcast, sad, and angry with himself.

“Aren’t I?”

“No! You think Allura would have wanted you to spend your whole life feeling guilty?”

“I think Allura would have wanted to stay with us,” Lance said, a little snappish. “In this universe. And I think if one of us was separated, was in her place, and we were in danger, or alone, or… I think she would go to the ends of the universe to find us.”

Keith looked away as Lance’s voice softened.

“Sorry,” he said, almost a whisper.

“No I- I’m sorry too, Keith.”

They fell into silence again, staring out across the fair as the wheel moved them jerkily higher.

“I think if Allura wasn’t happy, she would have found a way back.”

Keith flinched a little when Lance turned to look at him; maybe he hadn’t phrased that well.

“She knows we’ve got each other, right? And she’ll know we miss her, but… she’ll know we’re ok. I think she’d trust we’d all… take care of each other. And I think Allura can do anything. I think that… maybe, if she was trying hard enough, she could find us again. So Lance maybe she’s… not trying? Maybe she’s found something there, in that other universe, that’s worth staying for.”

Lance was quiet for a long while, staring at his hands, then out across the fair grounds.

“You don’t know that, though.”

“I can hope, can’t I?”

Keith looked to him hopefully, itching to reach out for his hand, to force Lance to look at him so he could see how sorry he was.

“We have to hope,” Keith whispered. “Or you’re never going to let go.”

“Do I have to let go?”

“Yes,” Keith answered softly. “You can still love and remember her, Lance. But you have to let go or you’ll… it will just destroy you.”

Lance was still, eyes fixed on a dark point in the night. Then he sniffled.

“You know that, don’t you?”

Keith watched the man duck his head, saw him blink away the watery haze in his eyes, saw him draw a deep breath of air.

“I know.”

Keith didn’t expect Lance to turn to him then, to offer a small, wobbly smile; but he did. It was dark up here, and colder than below, but all of that paled in comparison to the small, hopeful smile Lance gave him. Then the man leant back with a sigh, their carriage swinging a little as the wheel came to a stop and they were left right at the top. Sounds of laughter and chatter and music drifted up from the carnival like smoke, disjointed, thinning out around them.

“We’re a little closer to the stars up here,” Lance said with a sigh, his eyes fixed on the heavens.

Keith couldn’t see many stars, not with the lights of the carnival blocking them out, but a few bright ones shone here and there in the black of night.

“Don’t you miss it?”

“I do,” Lance admitted.

“Don’t you want to go back?”

Lance frowned, tapping his fingers along the open carriage.

“Sometimes. Do you?”

“I don’t know,” Keith admitted. “Under the right circumstances.”

“When we’re not fighting.”

“Yes,” said Keith, and paused. “And when it’s not… so lonely.”

He felt more than saw Lance turn to him, in this proximity.

“You were lonely?”

Keith shrugged. “Maybe. Being out there with the Blade would have sounded so ideal to me ten years ago. No people, just Galra who mostly mind their own business. But I don’t know, now it feels like I need all this. Earth, and humans. Guess that side of me won out, in the end. I need people. Didn’t think I would but I do.”

Lance hummed softly, processing that in his own gentle way.

“Were you lonely when we were part of Voltron?” He asked.

Keith smiled involuntarily; it was a genuine question, but couldn’t have been further from the truth. “I think that was the first time I wasn’t, actually.”

They were silent again, basking in the sweetness of memories pertaining to a muddled, dangerous, yet beautiful life they’d lived six years prior.

“God I miss them,” Keith whispered. “Everyone.”

“Me too,” said Lance.

He looked down, at the carnival and the noise and the people; then up, up at space. And space was dark, and silent, and vast, but Keith could feel him yearning for it.

“I’m so glad you came back,” Lance said quietly. “I’m so fucking glad.”

Then he laughed, like saying that was a weight off his chest.

“I just want them, everyone, again. Want to talk and… and share breakfast, and fly. I want to fly again, I _miss_ that. Even when they were irritating, even when I irritated you all, it was still… I want it all again. And it’s so hard.”

Lance was wiping tears off his cheeks, not crying, but full of emotion only Keith stood a chance at understanding. He didn’t know what to say, but he felt those words over and over. So he reached out, tucked an arm around Lance and smiled back at the teary smile that got him. Then they were just two overemotional fools on a Ferris wheel that kept winding to a stop, drifting between the noisy carnival and the silent stars. Keith wished it was that easy to exist between Earth and the skies and live like that, with Lance, and the others, and not miss everything so desperately.

-

Keith waited until much later that night to place the phone call. They were back in their little cabin in practically the middle of nowhere, and while Lance was busy in the shower, Keith sat on the soft covers of his bed and pressed call. Pidge picked up promptly, as she usually did, and got the first word in, like she also usually did.

“Okay, you seriously don’t usually call me this much.”

“Would you believe I miss you?”

“No.”

“Oh,” Keith said. “Oh, I actually… kind of meant that.”

“You miss me?” Pidge asked, also sounding confused.

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” she said. Then, “I miss you too, you know.”

The words were more comforting to Keith than he’d expected.

“Hey, sorry if I’ve been… distant. Or been acting weird.”

“Oh come on,” Pidge said with a light-hearted scoff. “I’m used to you being like that.”

Keith chuckled softly, wishing suddenly they could be having this conversation face to face, that Hunk could be there too, and Shiro. It had been too long, he needed to see them; they had grown distant but that didn’t mean he didn’t miss them.

“Are you alright?” Pidge asked.

“Yeah,” Keith said shakily. “And I promise I do miss you Pidge, a lot. And I want to talk. But I really, really need to speak to Coran right now.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” the green paladin replied. “But Coran? Why didn’t; you just call him?”

“He never picks up,” Keith said with a huff.

“Oh yeah. I built a silencer for his communicator, so…”

“It’s your fault,” Keith finished with a grin.

“I was bribed.”

“With what?”

“You have no idea how badly I want to say a robot,” said Pidge. “But it was a girl’s phone number.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Yeah. Coran was meant to pass it on to me. And he did. After I built him a silencer.”

“Wow,” said Keith.

“I know.”

“Anyway, is he around?”

“Yeah yeah,” Pidge said. “I’ll go find him.”

Then she was off with the phone still pressed to her ear since Keith could hear her breathing. Various other noises tacked on to their call, just whisperings of conversation, or the noises of machines, things that made him miss life out there, with the others.

“Oh, here he… he looks very enthusiastic,” Pidge warned. “Actually he’s- oh _jesus_ -“

“Keith!”

Pidge was butted rudely off the call as Coran’s voice overpowered the speakers.

“Hi Coran-“

“Keith, my boy! You couldn’t have called at a better time!”

“Uh… okay,” Keith said. “Listen, I was wondering if you’d want to visit Lance, he-“

“I have the most incredible thing to show you!” Coran almost yelled, then pulled away from the speaker to laugh, and Keith could almost imagine him dancing around excitably.

“Coran?”

“Where are you?” The Altean insisted. “Are you with Lance?”

“Yes we’re on Earth, we’re-“

“Fantastic,” Coran yelled. “Stay there!”

“O…kay?”

Then he hung up, just like that, no further explanation, not even a chance to speak to Pidge. Keith frowned at his phone, then glanced at the bathroom door where the shower water had just cut off. A message pinged on his phone, co-ordinates from Pidge.

_wants you to meet him here?? no clue either :/_

Keith typed back a quick thanks, then messaged Coran just in case he could wrangle any more details out of him. He could have pondered what the Altean was excited about all night, but shortly after Lance was emerging from the shower, all soft skin and easy smiles and quiet goodnights, and Keith didn’t care about much else in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to make requests or say hi on [tumblr](https://jupiters-junipers.tumblr.com/)  
> kudos and comments are so very much appreciated and will be used to directly power the author <3


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